The 
Merry-Go-Round 


BOOKS  BY 
CARL  VAN  VECHTEN 

MUSIC  AFTER  THE  GREAT  WAR    1915 
MUSIC  AND  BAD  MANNERS  1916 

INTERPRETERS  AND  INTERPRE- 
TATIONS 1917 
THE  MERRY-GO-ROUND                      1918 
THE  MUSIC  OF  SPAIN  1918 


The 
Merry-Go-Round 

Carl    Van     Vechten 


"Tournez,  tournez,  bons  chevaux  de  bois, 
Tournez  cent  tours,  tournez  mille  tours, 
Tournez  souvent  et  tournez  toujours, 
Tournez,  tournez  au  sons  de  hautbois.  " 
PAUL  VERLAINE 


New  York  Alfred  A.  Knopf 

MCMXVIII 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  INC. 


PRINTKD    IN    THE    UNITBD    8TATK8    OF    AMERICA 


s? 


For  Mary  Garden 


RJ29841 


C  o  n  t  e  n  ts 


PAGE 

IN  DEFENCE  OF  BAD  TASTE  11 

MUSIC  AND  SUPERMUSIC  23 

EDGAR  SALTUS  37 

THE  NEW  ART  OF  THE  SINGER  93 

Au  Bal  Musette  125 

Music  AND  COOKING  149 

AN  INTERRUPTED  CONVERSATION  179 
THE   AUTHORITATIVE  WORK    ON    AMERICAN 

Music  197 

OLD  DAYS  AND  NEW  215 

Two  YOUNG  AMERICAN  PLAYWRIGHTS  227 

De  Senectute  Cantorum  245 
IMPRESSIONS  IN  THE  THEATRE 

I     The  Land  of  Joy  281 

II     A  Note  on  Mimi  Aguglia  293 

III     The  New  Isadora  307 
IV     Margaret  Anglin  Produces  As   You 

Like  It  318 

THE  MODERN  COMPOSERS  AT  A  GLANCE  329 


Some  of  these  essays  have  appeared  in  "  The 
Smart  Set,"  "  Recdy's  Mfirror,"  "Vanity  Fair," 
"The  Chronicle,"  "The  Theatre,"  "The  Bell- 
man," "  The  Musical  Quarterly,"  "  Rogue,"  "  The 
New  York  Press,"  and  "The* New  York  Globe." 
In  their  present  form,  however,  they  have  under- 
gone considerable  redressing. 


In  Defence  of  Bad  Taste 

"  It  is  a  painful  thing,  at  best,  to  live  up  to  one's 
bricabric,  if  one  has  any;  but  to  live  up  to  the  brlca- 
bric  of  many  lands  and  of  many  centuries  is  a  strain 
which  no  wise  man  would  dream  of  inflicting  upon  his 
constitution." 

Agnes  Repplier. 


In  Defence  of  Bad  Taste 


IN  America,  where  men  are  supposed  to  know 
nothing  about  matters  of  taste  and  where 
women  have  their  dresses  planned  for  them, 
the  household  decorator  has  become  an  important 
factor  in  domestic  life.  Out  of  an  even  hundred 
rich  men  how  many  can  say  that  they  have  had 
anything  to  do  with  the  selection  or  arrangement 
of  the  furnishings  for  their  homes?  In  theatre 
programs  these  matters  are  regulated  and  due 
credit  is  given  to  the  various  firms  who  have  sup- 
plied the  myriad  appeals  to  the  eye;  one  knows 
who  thought  out  the  combinations  of  shoes,  hats, 
and  parasols,  and  one  knows  where  each  separate 
article  was  purchased.  Why  could  not  some 
similar  plan  of  appreciation  be  followed  in  the 
houses  of  our  very  rich?  Why  not,  for  instance, 
a  card  in  the  hall  something  like  the  following: 

This  house  was  furnished  and  decorated  according 
to  the  taste  of  Marcel  of  the  Dilly-Billy  Shop 

or 

We  are  living  in  the  kind  of  house  Miss  Simone 
0" Kelly  thought  we  should  live  in.     The 


In    Defence    of    Bad    Taste 

decorations  are  pure  Louis  XV  and 
the  furniture  is  authentic. 


It  is  not  difficult,  of  course,  to  differentiate  the 
personal  from  the  impersonal.  Nothing  clings  so 
ill  to  the  back  as  borrowed  finery  and  I  have  yet 
to  find  the  family  which  has  settled  itself  fondly 
and  comfortably  in  chairs  which  were  a  part  of 
some  one  else's  aesthetic  plan.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
many  of  our  millionaires  would  be  more  at  home 
in  an  atmosphere  concocted  from  the  ingredients 
of  plain  pine  tables  and  blanket-covered  mattresses 
than  they  are  surrounded  by  the  frippery  of  China 
and  the  frivolity  of  France.  If  these  gentlemen 
were  fortunate  enough  to  enjoy  sufficient  confi- 
dence in  their  own  taste  to  give  it  a  thorough  test 
it  is  not  safe  to  think  of  the  extreme  burden  that 
would  be  put  on  the  working  capacity  of  the  fac- 
tories of  the  Grand  Rapids  furniture  companies. 
We  might  find  a  few  emancipated  souls  scouring 
the  town  for  heavy  refectory  tables  and  divans  into 
which  one  could  sink,  reclining  or  upright,  with 
a  perfect  sense  of  ease,  but  these  would  be  as  rare 
as  Steinway  pianos  in  Coney  Island. 

For  Americans  are  meek  in  such  matters.  They 
credit  themselves  with  no  taste.  They  fear  com- 
[12] 


In    Defence    of    Bad    Taste 

parison.  If  the  very  much  sought-after  Simone 
O'Kelly  has  decorated  Mr.  B.'s  house  Mr.  M. 
does  not  dare  to  struggle  along  with  merely  his 
own  ideas  in  furnishing  his.  He  calls  in  an  ex- 
pert who  begins,  rather  inauspiciously,  by  paint- 
ing the  dining-room  salmon  pink.  The  tables  and 
chairs  will  be  made  by  somebody  on  Tenth  Street, 
exact  copies  of  a  set  to  be  found  in  the  Musee 
Carnavalet.  The  legs  under  the  table  are  awk- 
wardly arranged  for  diners  but  they  look  very 
well  when  the  table  is  unclothed.  The  decorator 
plans  to  hang  Mr.  M.'s  personal  bedroom  in  pale 
plum  colour.  Mr.  M.  rebels  at  this.  "  I  de- 
test," he  remarks  mildly,  "  all  variants  of  pur- 
ple." "  Very  well,"  acquiesces  the  decorator,  "  we 
will  make  it  green."  In  the  end  Mr.  M.'s  worst 
premonitions  are  realized :  the  walls  are  resplendent 
in  a  striking  shade  of  magenta.  Along  the  edge 
of  each  panel  of  Chinese  brocade  a  narrow  band 
of  absinthe  velvet  ribbon  gives  the  necessary  con- 
trast. The  furniture  is  painted  in  dull  ivory  with 
touches  of  gold  and  beryl  and  the  bed  cover  is 
peacock  blue.  Four  round  cushions  of  a  similar 
shade  repose  on  the  floor  at  the  foot  of  the  bed. 
The  fat  manufacturer's  wife  as  she  enters  this 
triumph  of  decoration  which  might  satisfy  Louise 
de  la  Valliere  or  please  Doris  Keane,  is  an  ana- 
[13] 


In    Defence    of    Bad    Taste 

chronistic  figure  and  she  is  aware  of  it.  She  pre- 
fers, on  the  whole,  the  brass  bedsteads  of  the 
summer  hotels.  Mr.  M.  himself  feels  ridiculous. 
He  never  enters  the  room  without  a  groan  and  a 
remark  on  the  order  of  "  Good  God,  what  a 
colour!  "  His  personal  taste  finds  its  supreme  en- 
joyment in  the  Circassian  walnut  panelling,  desk, 
and  tables  of  the  directors'  room  in  the  Million- 
aire's Trust  and  Savings  Bank.  "  Rich  and  taste- 
ful " :  how  many  times  he  has  used  this  phrase  to 
express  his  approval!  In  the  mid-Victorian  red 
plush  of  his  club,  too,  he  is  comfortable. 
"  Waiter,  another  whiskey  and  soda!  " 

Mildred  is  expected  home  after  her  first  year 
in  boarding  school.  Her  mother  wishes  to  environ 
her,  so  to  speak.  Mildred  is  delicate  in  her  tastes, 
so  delicate  that  she  scarcely  ever  expresses  her- 
self. Her  mind  and  body  are  pure;  her  heart 
beats  faster  when  she  learns  of  distress.  Volup- 
tuousness, Venus,  and  Vice  arc  all  merely  words  to 
her.  Mother  does  not  explain  this  to  the  deco- 
rator. "  My  daughter  is  returning  from  school," 
she  says,  "  I  want  her  room  done."  "  What  style 
of  room?  "  "  After  all  you  are  supposed  to  know 
that.  I  am  engaging  you  to  arrange  it  for  me." 
"Your  daughter,  I  take  it,  is  a  modern  girl?" 
"  You  may  assume  as  much."  In  despair  for  a 
[U] 


In    Defence    of    Bad    Taste 

hint  the  decorator  steals  a  look  at  a  photograph 
of  the  miss,  full-lipped,  melting  dark  eyes,  and 
blue-black  hair.  Sensing  an  houri  he  hangs  the 
walls  with  a  deep  shade  of  Persian  orange,  over 
which  flit  tropical  birds  of  emerald  and  azure; 
strange  pomegranates  bleed  their  seeds  at  regular 
intervals.  The  couch  is  an  adaptation,  in  colour, 
of  the  celebrated  Sumurun  bed.  The  dressing 
table  and  the  chaise-longue  are  of  Chinese  lacquer. 
A  heavy  bronze  incense  burner  pours  forth  fumes 
of  Bichara's  Scheherazade.  From  the  window 
frames,  stifling  the  light,  depend  flame-coloured 
brocaded  curtains  embroidered  in  Egyptian 
enamelled  beads.  It  is  a  triumph,  this  chamber, 
of  style  Ballet  Russe.  Diana  is  banished  .  .  . 
and  shrinking  Mildred,  returning  from  school, 
finds  her  demure  soul  at  variance  with  her  sur- 
roundings. 

A  man's  house  should  be  the  expression  of  the 
man  himself.  All  the  books  on  the  subject  and 
even  the  household  decorators  themselves  will  tell 
you  that.  But,  if  the  decoration  of  a  house  is  to 
express  its  owner,  it  is  necessary  that  he  himself 
inspire  it,  which  implies,  of  course,  the  possession 
of  ideas,  even  though  they  be  bad.  And  men  in 
these  United  States  are  not  expected  to  display 
mental  anguish  or  pleasure  when  confronted  by 
[15] 


In    Defence    of    Bad    Taste 

colour  combinations.  In  America  one  is  con- 
stantly hearing  young  ladies  say,  "  He's  a  man 
and  so,  of  course,  knows  nothing  about  colour," 
or  "  Of  course  a  man  never  looks  at  clothes."  It 
does  not  seem  to  be  necessary  to  argue  this  point. 
One  has  only  to  remember  that  Veronese  was  a 
man;  so  was  Velasquez.  Even  Paul  Poiret  and 
Leon  Bakst  belong  to  the  sex  of  Adam.  Never- 
theless most  Americans  still  consider  it  a  little 
effemine,  a  trifle  declasse,  for  a  business  man  (al- 
lowances are  sometimes  made  for  poets,  musicians, 
actors,  and  people  who  live  in  Greenwich  Village), 
to  make  any  references  to  colour  or  form.  He 
may  admire,  with  obvious  emphasis  on  the  women 
they  lightly  enclose,  the  costumes  of  the  Follies 
but  he  is  not  permitted  to  exhibit  knowledge  of 
materials  and  any  suddenly  expressed  desire  on 
his  part  to  rush  into  a  shop  and  hug  some  bit  of 
colour  from  the  show  window  to  his  heart  would  be 
regarded  as  a  symptom  of  madness. 

The  audience  which  gives  the  final  verdict  on 
a  farce  makes  allowances  for  the  author;  permits 
him  the  use  of  certain  conventions.  For  example, 
he  is  given  leave  to  introduce  a  hotel  corridor  into 
his  last  act  with  seven  doors  opening  on  a  com- 
mon hallway  so  that  his  characters  may  con- 
veniently and  persistently  enter  the  wrong  rooms. 
[16] 


In    Defence    of    Bad    Taste 

It  may  be  supposed  that  I  ask  for  some  such  license 
from  my  audience.  "  How  ridiculous,"  you  may 
be  saying,  "  I  know  of  interior  decorators  who 
spend  weeks  in  reading  out  the  secrets  of  their 
clients'  souls  in  order  to  provide  their  proper 
settings."  There  doubtless  are  interior  decora- 
tors who  succeed  in  giving  a  home  the  appearance 
i  of  a  well-kept  hotel  where  guests  may  mingle  com- 
fortably and  freely.  I  should  not  wish  to  deny 
this.  But  I  do  deny  that  soul-study  is  a  require- 
ment for  the  profession.  If  a  man  (or  a  woman) 
has  a  soul  it  will  not  be  a  decorator  who  will  dis- 
cover its  fitting  housing.  Others  may  object, 
"  But  bad  taste  is  rampant.  Surely  it  is  better 
to  be  guided  by  some  one  who  knows  than  to  sur- 
round oneself  with  rocking  chairs,  plaster  casts 
of  the  Winged  Victory,  and  photographs  of  vari- 
ous madonnas."  I  say  that  it  is  not  better.  It  is 
better  for  each  man  to  express  himself,  through  his 
taste,  as  well  as  through  his  tongue  or  his  pen, 
as  he  may.  And  it  is  only  through  such  expres- 
sion that  he  will  finally  arrive  (if  he  ever  can)  at 
ra  condition  of  household  furnishing  which  will  say 
something  to  his  neighbour  as  well  as  to  himself. 
It  is  a  pleasure  when  one  leaves  a  dinner  party  to 
be  able  to  observe  "  That  is  his  house,"  just  as  it 
is  a  pleasure  when  one  leaves  a  concert  to  remem- 
[17] 


In    Defence    of    Bad    Taste 

her  that  a  composer  has  expressed  himself  and 
not  the  result  of  seven  years  study  in  Berlin  or 
Paris. 

But  Americans  have  little  aptitude  for  self-ex- 
pression. They  prefer  to  huddle,  like  cattle,  un- 
der unspeakable  whips  when  matters  of  art  are 
under  discussion.  They  fear  ridicule.  As  a  con- 
sequence many  of  the  richest  men  in  this  country 
never  really  live  in  their  own  homes,  never  are 
comfortable  for  a  moment,  although  the  walls  are 
hung  double  with  Fragonards  and  hawthorne 
vases  stand  so  deep  upon  the  tables  that  no  space 
remains  for  the  "  Saturday  Review "  or  "  le 
Temps."  And  they  never,  never,  never,  will  know 
the  pleasure  which  comes  while  stumbling  down  a 
side  street  in  London,  or  in  the  mouldy  corners  of 
the  Venetian  ghetto,  or  in  the  Marche  du  Temple 
in  Paris,  or,  heaven  knows,  in  New  York,  on  lower 
Fourth  Avenue,  or  in  Chinatown,  or  in  a  Russian 
brass  shop  on  Allen  Street,  or  in  a  big  department 
store  (as  often  there  as  anywhere)  in  finding 
just  the  lamp  for  just  the  table  in  just  the  corner, 
or  in  discovering  a  bit  of  brocade,  perhaps  the 
ragged  remnant  of  a  waistcoat  belonging  to  an 
aristocrat  of  the  Directorate,  which  will  lighten 
the  depths  of  a  certain  room,  or  a  chair  which 
goes  miraculously  with  a  desk  already  possessed, 
[18] 


In    Defence    of    Bad    Taste 

or  a  Chinese  mirror  which  one  had  almost  decided 
did  not  exist.  Nor  will  they  ever  experience  the 
joy  of  sudden  decision  in  front  of  a  picture  by 
Matisse,  which  ends  in  the  sale  of  a  Delacroix. 
Nor  can  they  feel  the  thrill  which  is  part  of  the 
replacing  of  a  make-shift  rug  by  the  rug  of  rugs 
(let  us  hope  it  was  Solomon's  f). 

I  know  a  lady  in  Paris  whose  salon  presents  a 
different  aspect  each  summer.  Do  her  Picassos 
go,  a  new  Spanish  painter  has  replaced  them. 
Have  you  missed  the  Gibbons  carving?  Spanish 
church  carving  has  taken  its  place.  "  And  where 
are  your  Venetian  embroideries  ?  "  "  I  sold  them 
to  the  Marquise  de  V.  .  .  .  The  money  served  to 
buy  these  Persian  miniatures."  This  lady  has 
travelled  far.  She  is  not  experimenting  in  doubt- 
ful taste  or  bad  art ;  she  is  not  even  experimenting 
in  her  own  taste:  she  is  simply  enjoying  different 
epochs,  different  artists,  different  forms  of  art, 
each  in  its  turn,  for  so  long  as  it  says  anything 
to  her.  Her  house  is  not  a  museum.  Space  and 
comfort  demand  exclusion  but  she  excludes  noth- 
ing forever  that  she  desires.  .  .  .  She  exchanges. 

Taste  at  best  is  relative.     It  is  an  axiom  that 

anybody  else's  taste  can  never  say  anything  to 

you  although  you  may  feel  perfectly  certain  that 

it  is  better  than  your  own.     If  more  of  the  money 

[19] 


In    Defence    of    Bad    Taste 

of  the  rich  were  spent  in  encouraging  children  to 
develop  their  own  ideas  in  furnishing  their  own 
rooms  it  would  serve  a  better  purpose  than  it  does 
now  when  it  is  dropped  into  the  ample  pockets  of 
the  professional  decorators.  Oscar  Wilde  wrote, 
"  A  colour  sense  is  more  important  in  the  de- 
velopment of  the  individual  than  a  sense  of  right 
and  wrong."  Any  young  boy  or  girl  can  learn 
something  about  such  matters;  most  of  them,  if 
not  shamed  out  of  it,  take  a  natural  interest  in 
their  surroundings.  You  will  see  how  true  this 
is  if  you  attempt  to  rearrange  a  child's  room. 
Those  who  have  bad  taste,  relatively,  should  liter- 
ally be  allowed  to  make  their  own  beds.  On  the 
whole  it  is  preferable  to  be  comfortable  in  red  and 
green  velvet  upholstery  than  to  be  beautiful  and 
unhappy  in  a  household  decorator's  gilded  cage. 
September  3,  1915. 


[20] 


Music  and  Supermusic 

"  To  know  whether  you  are  enjoying  a  piece  of 
music  or  not  you  must  see  whether  you  find  yourself 
looking  at  the  advertisements  of  Pears'  soap  at  the 
end  of  the  program/' 

Samuel  Butler. 


Music  and  Supermusic 


WHAT  is  the  distinction  in  the  mind  of 
Everycritic  between  good  music  and 
bad  music,  in  the  mind  of  Everyman 
between  popular  music  and  "  classical "  music  ? 
What  is  the  essential  difference  between  an  air  by 
Mozart  and  an  air  by  Jerome  Kern?  Why  is 
Chopin's  G  mmor  nocturne  better  music  than 
Thecla  Badarzewska's  La  Priere  d'une  Vierge? 
Why  is  a  music  drama  by  Richard  Wagner  prefer- 
able to  a  music  drama  by  Horatio  W.  Parker? 
What  makes  a  melody  distinguished?  What 
makes  a  melody  commonplace  or  cheap?  Why 
do  some  melodies  ring  in  our  ears  generation  after 
generation  while  others  enjoy  but  a  brief  popular- 
ity? Why  do  certain  composers,  such  as  Raff  and 
Mendelssohn,  hailed  as  geniuses  while  they  were 
yet  alive,  soon  sink  into  semi-obscurity,  while 
others,  such  as  Robert  Franz  and  Moussorgsky, 
almost  unrecognized  by  their  contemporaries, 
grow  in  popularity?  Are  there  no  answers  to 
these  conundrums  and  the  thousand  others  that 
might  be  asked  by  a  person  with  a  slight  attack 
of  curiosity?  .  .  .  No  one  does  ask  and  assuredly 
no  one  answers.  These  riddles,  it  would  seem,  are 
[88] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

included  among  the  forbidden  mysteries  of  the 
sphynx.  The  critics  assert  with  authority  and 
some  show  of  erudition  that  the  Spohrs,  the 
Mendelssohns,  the  Humperdincks,  and  the  Monte- 
mezzis  are  great  composers.  They  usually  admire 
the  grandchildren  of  Old  Lady  Tradition  but  they 
neglect  to  justify  this  partiality.  Nor  can  we 
trust  the  public  with  its  favourite  Piccinnis  and 
Puccinis.  .  .  .  What  then  is  the  test  of  super- 
music  ? 

For  we  know,  as  well  as  we  can  know  anything, 
that  there  is  music  and  supermusic.  Rubinstein 
wrote  music;  Beethoven  wrote  supermusic  (Mr. 
Finck  may  contradict  this  statement).  Bellini 
wrote  operas;  Mozart  wrote  superoperas.  Jen- 
sen wrote  songs  ;  Schubert  wrote  supersongs.  The 
superiority  of  Voi  che  sapete  as  a  vocal  melody 
over  Ah!  non  giunge  is  not  generally  contested; 
neither  can  we  hesitate  very  long  over  the  ques- 
tion whether  or  not  Der  Leiermann  is  a  better  song 
than  Lehn'  deine  Wang9.  Probably  even  Mr.  Finck 
will  admit  that  the  Sonata  Appassionata  is  finer 
music  than  the  most  familiar  portrait  (I  think  it 
is  No.  22)  in  the  Kamermoi-Ostrow  set.  But,  if 
we  agree  to  put  Mozart,  Bach,  Beethoven,  Schu- 
bert, and  a  few  others  on  marmorean  pedestals 
in  a  special  Hall  of  Fame  (and  this  is  a  compro- 
[24] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

mise  on  my  part,  at  any  rate,  as  I  consider  much 
of  the  music  written  by  even  these  men  to  be  below 
any  moderately  high  standard),  what  about  the 
rest?  Mr.  Finck  prefers  Johann  Strauss  to 
Brahms,  nay  more  to  Richard  himself!  He  has 
written  a  whole  book  for  no  other  reason,  it  would 
seem,  than  to  prove  that  the  author  of  Tod  und 
Verklarung  is  a  very  much  over-rated  individual. 
At  times  sitting  despondently  in  Carnegie  Hall,  I 
am  secretly  inclined  to  agree  with  him.  Personally 
I  can  say  that  I  prefer  Irving  Berlin's  music  to 
that  of  Edward  MacDowell  and  I  would  like  to 
have  some  one  prove  to  me  that  this  position  is 
untenable. 

What  is  the  test  of  supermusic?  I  have  read 
that  fashionable  music,  music  composed  in  a  style 
welcomed  and  appreciated  by  its  contemporary 
hearers  is  seldom  supermusic.  Yet  Handel  wrote 
fashionable  music,  and  so  much  other  of  the 
music  of  that  epoch  is  Handelian  that  it  is 
often  difficult  to  be  sure  where  George  Frederick 
left  off  and  somebody  else  began.  Bellini  wrote 
fashionable  music  and  Norma  and  La  Sormambula 
sound  a  trifle  faded  although  they  are  still  oc- 
casionally performed,  but  Rossini,  whose  only  de- 
sire was  to  please  his  public,  (Liszt  once  observed 
"Rossini  and  Co.  always  close  with  '  I  remain  your 
[25] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

very  humble  servant '  "),  wrote  melodies  in  II  Bar- 
biere  di  Siviglia  which  sound  as  fresh  to  us  today  as 
they  did  when  they  were  first  composed.  And 
when  this  prodigiously  gifted  musician-cook  turned 
his  back  to  the  public  to  write  GuMaume  Tell  he 
penned  a  work  which  critics  have  consistently  told 
us  is  a  masterpiece,  but  which  is  as  seldom  per- 
formed today  as  any  opera  of  the  early  Nineteenth 
Century  which  occasionally  gains  a  hearing  at  all. 
Therefor  we  must  be  wary  of  the  old  men  who  tell 
us  that  we  shall  soon  tire  of  the  music  of  Puccini 
because  it  is  fashionable. 

Popularity  is  scarcely  a  test.  I  have  mentioned 
Mendelssohn.  Never  was  there  a  more  popular 
composer,  and  yet  aside  from  the  violin  concerto 
what  work  of  his  has  maintained  its  place  in  the 
concert  repertory?  Yet  Chopin,  whose  name  is 
seldom  absent  from  the  program  of  a  pianist,  was 
a  god  in  his  own  time  and  the  most  brilliant  woman 
of  his  epoch  fell  in  love  with  him,  as  Philip  Moeller 
has  recently  reminded  us  in  his  very  amusing  play. 
On  the  other  hand  there  is  the  case  of  Robert 
Franz  whose  songs  never  achieved  real  popular- 
ity during  his  lifetime,  but  which  are  frequently, 
almost  invariably  indeed,  to  be  found  on  song  ro- 
cital  programs  today  and  which  are  more  and 
more  appreciated.  The  critics  are  praising  him, 
[26] 


Music    and    Su  permu  sic 

the  public  likes  him:  they  buy  his  songs.  And 
there  is  also  the  case  of  Max  Reger  who  was  not 
popular,  is  not  popular,  and  never  will  be  popular. 

Can  we  judge  music  by  academic  standards? 
Certainly  not.  Even  the  hoary  old  academicians 
themselves  can  answer  this  question  correctly  if 
you  put  it  in  relation  to  any  composer  born  be- 
fore 1820.  The  greatest  composers  have  seldom 
respected  the  rules.  Beethoven  in  his  last  sonatas 
and  string  quartets  slapped  all  the  pedants  in  the 
ears ;  yet  I  believe  you  will  find  astonishingly  few 
rules  broken  by  Mozart,  one  of  the  gods  in  the 
mythology  of  art  music,  and  Berlioz,  who  broke 
all  the  rules,  is  more  interesting  to  us  today  as  a 
writer  of  prose  than  as  a  writer  of  music. 

Is  simple  music  supermusic?  Certainly  not  in- 
variably. Vedrai  Carmo  is  a  simple  tune,  almost 
as  simple  as  a  folk-song  and  we  set  great  store 
by  it;  yet  Michael  William  Balfe  wrote  twenty- 
seven  operas  filled  with  similarly  simple  tunes  and 
in  a  selective  draft  of  composers  his  number  would 
probably  be  9,768.  The  Ave  Maria  of  Schubert 
is  a  simple  tune ;  so  is  the  Meditation  from  Thais. 
Why  do  we  say  that  one  is  better  than  the  other. 

Or  is  supermusic  always  grand,  sad,  noble,  or 
emotional?  There  must  be  another  violent  head 
shaking  here.  The  air  from  Oberon,  Ocean,  thou 
[27] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

mighty  monster,  is  so  grand  that  scarcely  a  singer 
can  be  found  today  capable  of  interpreting  it,  al- 
though many  sopranos  puff  and  steam  through  it, 
for  all  the  world  like  pinguid  gentlemen  climbing 
the  stairs  to  the  towers  of  Notre  Dame.  The 
Fifth  Symphony  of  Beethoven  is  both  grand  and 
noble;  probably  no  one  will  be  found  who  will 
deny  that  it  is  supermusic,  but  Mahler's  Symphony 
of  the  Thousand  is  likewise  grand  and  noble,  and 
futile  and  bombastic  to  boot.  Or  sai  chi  Vonorc 
is  a  grand  air,  but  Robert  je  t'aime  is  equally 
grand  in  intention,  at  least.  Der  Tod  und  das 
Mddchen  is  sad ;  so  is  Les  Larmes  in  Werther.  .  .  . 
But  a  very  great  deal  of  supermusic  is  neither 
grand  nor  sad.  Haydn's  symphonies  are  usually 
as  light-hearted  and  as  light-waisted  as  possible. 
Mozart's  Figaro  scarcely  seems  to  have  a  care. 
Listen  to  Beethoven's  Fourth  and  Eighth  Sym- 
phonies, II  Barbiere  again,  Die  Meister singer.  .  .  . 
But  do  not  be  misled:  Massenet's  Don  Quichotte 
is  light  music ;  so  is  Mascagni's  Lodoletta.  .  .  . 

Is  music  to  be  prized  and  taken  to  our  hearts 
because  it  is  contrapuntal  and  complex?  We  fre- 
quently hear  it  urged  that  Bach  (who  was  more  or 
less  forgotten  for  a  hundred  years,  by  the  way) 
was  the  greatest  of  composers  and  his  music  is  es- 
pecially intricate.  He  is  the  one  composer,  in- 
[28] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

deed,  who  can  never  be  played  with  one  finger! 
But  poor  unimportant  forgotten  Max  Reger  also 
wrote  in  the  most  complicated  forms ;  the  great 
Gluck  in  the  simplest.  Gluck,  indeed,  has  even 
been  considered  weak  in  counterpoint  and  fugue. 
Meyerbeer,  it  is  said,  was  also  weak  in  counter- 
point and  fugue.  Is  he  therefor  to  be  regarded 
as  the  peer  of  Gluck?  Is  Mozart's  G  minor  Sym- 
phony more  important  (because  it  is  more  com- 
plicated) than  the  same  composer's,  Batti,  Batti? 
We  learn  from  some  sources  that  music  stands 
or  falls  by  its  melody  but  what  is  good  melody? 
According  to  his  contemporaries  Wagner's  music 
dramas  were  lacking  in  melody.  Sweet  Marie  is 
certainly  a  melody ;  why  is  it  not  as  good  a  melody 
as  The  Old  Folks  at  Home?  Why  is  Musetta's 
waltz  more  popular  than  Gretel's?  It  is  no  bet- 
ter as  melody.  As  a  matter  of  fact  there  is,  has 
been,  and  for  ever  will  be  war  over  this  question 
of  melody,  because  the  point  of  view  on  the  subject 
is  continually  changing.  As  Cyril  Scott  puts  it 
in  his  book,  "  The  Philosophy  of  Modernism  " :  "  at 
one  time  it  (melody)  extended  over  a  few  bars 
and  then  came  to  a  close,  being,  as  it  were,  a  kind 
of  sentence,  which,  after  running  for  the  moment, 
arrived  at  a -full  stop,  or  semicolon.  Take  this 
and  compare  it  with  the  modern  tendency :  for  that 
[29] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

modern  tendency  is  to  argue  that  a  melody  might 
go  on  indefinitely  almost;  there  is  no  reason  why 
it  should  come  to  a  full  stop,  for  it  is  not  a  sen- 
tence, but  more  a  line,  which,  like  the  rambling  in- 
curvations of  a  frieze,  requires  no  rule  to  stop 
it,  but  alone  the  will  and  taste  of  its  engenderer." 

Or  is  harmonization  the  important  factor? 
Folk-songs  are  not  harmonized  at  all,  and  yet 
certain  musicians,  Cecil  Sharp  for  example,  de- 
vote their  lives  to  collecting  them,  while  others, 
like  Percy  Grainger,  base  their  compositions  on 
them.  On  the  other  hand  such  music  as  Debussy's 
Iberia  depends  for  its  very  existence  on  its  beau- 
tiful harmonies.  The  harmonies  of  Gluck  are  ex- 
tremely simple,  those  of  Richard  Strauss  extremely 
complex. 

H.  T.  Finck  says  somewhere  that  one  of  the 
greatest  charms  of  music  is  modulation  but  the 
old  church  composers  who  wrote  in  the  "  modes  " 
never  modulated  at  all.  Erik  Satie  seldom  avails 
himself  of  this  modern  device.  It  is  a  question 
whether  Leo  Omstein  modulates.  If  we  may  take 
him  at  his  word  Arnold  Schoenberg  has  a  system 
of  modulation.  At  least  it  is  his  very  own. 

Are  long  compositions  better  than  short  ones? 
This  may  seem  a  silly  question  but  I  have  read 
criticisms  based  on  a  theory  that  they  were. 
[30] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

Listen,  for  example,  to  de  Quincy :  "  A  song,  an 
air,  a  tune, —  that  is,  a  short  succession  of  notes 
revolving  rapidly  upon  itself, —  how  could  that  by 
possibility  offer  a  field  of  compass  sufficient  for 
the  development  of  great  musical  effects?  The 
preparation  pregnant  with  the  future,  the  remote 
correspondence,  the  questions,  as  it  were,  which 
to  a  deep  musical  sense  are  asked  in  one  passage, 
and  answered  in  another;  the  iteration  and  in- 
gemination  of  a  given  effect,  moving  through  sub- 
tile variations  that  sometimes  disguise  the  theme, 
sometimes  fitfully  reveal  it,  sometimes  throw  it  out 
tumultuously  to  the  daylight, —  these  and  ten 
thousand  forms  of  self-conflicting  musical  passion 
—  what  room  could  they  find,  what  opening,  for 
utterance,  in  so  limited  a  field  as  an  air  or  song?  " 
After  this  broadside  permit  me  to  quote  a  verse 
of  Gerard  de  Nerval : 

"  11  est  un  air  pour  qui  je  donnerais 
Tout  Rossini,  tout  Mozart,  et  tout  Weber, 
Un  air  tres-vieux,  languissant  et  funebre, 
Qui  pour  moi  seul  a  des  charmes  secrets." 

And  now  let  us  dispassionately,  if  possible,  regard 
the    evidence.     Richard    Strauss's    Alpine    Sym- 
phony, admittedly  one  of  his  weakest  works  and 
[31] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

considered  very  tiresome  even  by  ardent  Strauss- 
ians,  plays  for  nearly  an  hour  while  any  one  can 
sing  Der  Erlkonig  in  three  minutes.  Are  short 
compositions  better  than  long  ones?  Answer: 
Love  me  and  the  World  is  Mine  is  a  short  song 
(although  it  seldom  sounds  so)  while  Schubert's 
C  major  Symphony  is  called  the  "  symphony  of 
heavenly  length." 

Is  what  is  new  better  than  what  is  old?  Is 
what  is  old  better  than  what  is  new?  Schoenberg 
is  new ;  is  he  therefor  to  be  considered  better  than 
Beethoven?  Stravinsky  is  new;  is  he  therefor  to 
be  considered  worse  than  Liszt? 

Is  an  opera  better  than  a  song?  Compare 
Pagliacci  and  Strauss's  Standchen.  Is  a  string 
quartet  better  than  a  piece  for  the  piano?  But 
I  grow  weary.  .  .  .  Under  the  circumstances  it 
would  seem  that  if  you  have  any  strong  opinions 
about  music  you  are  perfectly  entitled  to  them, 
for  the  critics  do  not  agree  and  you  will  find  many 
of  them  basing  their  criticism  on  some  of  the 
various  hypotheses  I  have  advanced.  H.  T.  Finck 
tells  us  that  the  sonata  form  is  illogical,  forgetting 
perhaps  that  once  it  served  its  purpose;  Jean 
Marnold  dubbed  Armide  an  aeuvre  batarde;  John 
F.  Runciman  called  Parsifal  "  decrepit  stuff," 
while  Ernest  Newman  assures  us  that  it  is 
[32] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

"  marvellous  " ;  Pierre  Lalo  and  Philip  Hale  dis- 
agree on  the  subject  of  Debussy's  La  Mer  while 
W.  J.  Henderson  and  James  Huneker  wrangle  over 
Richard  Strauss's  Don  Quixote. 

The  clue  to  the  whole  matter  lies  in  a  short 
phrase:  Imitative  work  is  always  bad.  Music 
that  tries  to  be  something  that  something  else  has 
been  may  be  thrown  aside  as  worthless.  It  will 
not  endure  although  it  may  sometimes  please  the 
zanies  and  jackoclocks  of  a  generation.  The 
critic,  therefor,  who  comes  nearest  to  the  heart  of 
the  matter,  is  he  who,  either  through  instinct 
or  familiarity  with  the  various  phenomena  of 
music,  is  able  to  judge  of  a  work's  originality. 
There  must  be  individuality  in  new  music  to  make 
it  worthy  of  our  attention,  and  that,  after  all 
is  all  that  matters.  For  the  tiniest  folk-song 
often  persists  in  the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  peo- 
ple, often  stirs  the  pulse  of  a  musician,  pursuing 
its  tuneful  way  through  two  centuries,  while  a 
mighty  thundering  symphony  of  the  same  period 
may  lie  dead  and  rotting,  food  for  the  Niptus 
Hololencus  and  the  Blatta  Germanica.  We  still 
sing  The  Old  Folks  At  Home  and  Le  Cycle  du  Vm 
but  we  have  laid  aside  Di  Tanti  Palpiti.  Any 
piece  of  music  possessing  the  certain  magic  power 
of  individuality  is  of  value,  it  matters  not  whether 
[38] 


Music    and    Supermusic 

it  be  symphony  or  song,  opera  or  dance.  What 
most  critics  have  forgotten  is  that  in  Music  mat- 
ter, form,  and  idea  are  one.  In  painting,  in 
poetry  the  idea,  the  words,  the  form,  may  be  sepa- 
rated ;  each  may  play  its  part,  but  in  music  there 
is  no  idea  without  form,  no  form  without  idea. 
That  is  what  makes  musical  criticism  difficult. 

January  $4,  1918. 


[34] 


Edgar  Saltus 

*  0  no,  we  never  mention  him, 
His  name  is  never  heard!  " 

Old  Ballad. 


Edgar  Saltus 


TO  write  about  Edgar  Saltus  should  be  vieux 
jeu.  The  man  is  an  American;  he  was 
born  in  1858;  he  accomplished  some  of  his 
best  work  in  the  Eighties  and  the  Nineties,  in  the 
days  when  mutton-legged  sleeves,  whatnots, 
Rogers  groups,  cat-tails,  peacock  feathers,  Japa- 
nese fans,  musk-mellon  seed  collars,  and  big- 
wheeled  bicycles  were  in  vogue.  He  has  written 
history,  fiction,  poetry,  literary  criticism,  and 
philosophy,  and  to  all  these  forms  he  has  brought 
sympathy,  erudition,  a  fresh  point  of  view,  and 
a  radiant  style.  He  has  imagination  and  he  un- 
derstands the  gentle  art  of  arranging  facts  in 
kaleidoscopic  patterns  so  that  they  may  attract 
and  not  repel  the  reader.  America,  indeed,  has 
not  produced  a  round  dozen  authors  who  equal 
him  as  a  brilliant  stylist  with  a  great  deal  to  say. 
And  yet  this  man,  who  wrote  some  of  his  best  books 
in  the  Eighties  and  who  is  still  alive,  has  been  al- 
lowed to  drift  into  comparative  oblivion.  Even 
his  early  reviewers  shoved  him  impatiently  aside 
or  ignored  him  altogether ;  a  writer  in  "  Belf ord's 
Magazine  "  for  July,  1888,  says :  "  Edgar  Saltus 
should  have  his  name  changed  to  Edgar  As- 
[37] 


Edgar    Saltu  s 


saulted."  Soon  he  became  a  literary  leper.  The 
doctors  and  professors  would  have  none  of  him. 
To  most  of  them,  nowadays,  I  suppose,  he  is  only 
a  name.  Many  of  them  have  never  read  any  of 
his  books.  I  do  not  even  remember  to  have  seen 
him  mentioned  in  the  works  of  James  Huneker 
and  you  will  not  find  his  name  in  Barrett  Wen- 
dell's "  A  History  of  American  Literature " 
(1901),  "  A  Reader's  History  of  American  Litera- 
ture "  by  Thomas  Wentworth  Higginson  and 
Henry  Walcott  Boynton  (1903),  Katherine  Lee 
Bates's  "American  Literature"  (1898),  "A 
Manual  of  American  Literature,"  edited  by  Theo- 
dore Stanton  (1909),  William  B.  Cairns's  "A 
History  of  American  Literature  "  (1912),  William 
Edward  Simonds's  "A  Student's  History  of 
American  Literature"  (1909),  Fred  Lewis  Pat- 
tee's  "  A  History  of  American  Literature  Since 
1870"  (1915),  John  Macy's  "The  Spirit  of 
American  Literature"  (1913),  or  William  Lyon 
Phelps's  "The  Advance  of  the  English  Novel" 
(1916).  The  third  volume  of  "The  Cambridge 
History  of  American  Literature,"  bringing  the 
subject  up  to  1900,  has  not  yet  appeared  but  I 
should  be  amazed  to  discover  that  the  editors  had 
decided  to  include  Saltus  therein.  Curiously 
enough  he  is  mentioned  in  Oscar  Fay  Adams's  "  A 
[38] 


Edgar    Saltus 


Dictionary  of  American  Authors  "  (1901  edition) 
and,  of  all  places,  I  have  found  a  reference  to 
him  in  one  of  Agnes  Repplier's  books. 

You  will  find  few  essays  about  the  man  or  his 
work  in  current  or  anterior  periodicals.  There 
is,  to  be  sure,  the  article  by  Ramsay  Colles, 
entitled  "  A  Publicist :  Edgar  Saltus,"  published 
in  the  "  Westminster  Magazine "  for  October, 
1904,  but  this  essay  could  have  won  our  author  no 
adherents.  If  any  one  had  the  courage  to  wade 
through  its  muddy  paragraphs  he  doubtless 
emerged  vowing  never  to  read  Saltus.  Besides 
only  the  novels  are  touched  on.  In  1903  G.  F. 
Monkshood  and  George  Gamble  arranged  a  com- 
pilation from  Saltus's  work  which  they  entitled 
"  Wit  and  Wisdom  from  Edgar  Saltus  "  (Green- 
ing and  Co.,  London).  The  work  is  done  without 
sense  or  sensitiveness  and  the  prefatory  essay 
is  without  salt  or  flavour  of  any  sort.  An 
anonymous  writer  in  "  Current  Literature  "  for 
July,  1907,  asks  plaintively  why  this  author  has 
been  permitted  to  remain  in  obscurity  and  quotes 
from  some  of  the  reviews.  In  "  The  Philistine  " 
for  October,  1907,  Elbert  Hubbard  takes  a  hand 
in  the  game.  He  says,  "  Edgar  Saltus  is  the  best 
writer  in  America  —  with  a  few  insignificant  ex- 
ceptions," but  he  deplores  the  fact  that  Saltus 
[39] 


Edgar    Saltu  s 


knows  nothing  about  the  cows  and  chickens ;  only 
cities  and  gods  seem  to  interest  him.  Still  there 
is  some  atmosphere  in  this  study,  which  is  devoted 
to  one  book,  "  The  Lords  of  the  Ghostland."  In 
the  New  York  Public  Library  four  of  Saltus's 
books  and  one  of  his  translations  (about  one- 
sixth  of  his  published  work)  are  listed.  You  may 
also  find  there  in  a  series  of  volumes  entitled  "  Na- 
tions of  the  World  "  his  supplementary  chapters 
bringing  the  books  up  to  date.  That  is  all. 

All  these  years,  of  course,  Saltus  has  had  his 
admiring  circle,1  people  of  intelligence,  of  whom, 
unfortunately,  I  cannot  say  that  I  was  one. 
These,  who  have  been  content  to  read  and  admire 
without  spreading  the  news,  may  well  be  inclined 
to  regard  my  performance  as  repetitive  and  im- 
pertinent. Of  these  I  must  crave  indulgence  and 
of  Saltus  himself  too.  For  he,  knowing  how  well 
he  has  done  his  work,  must  sit  like  Buddha,  ironic 
and  indulgent,  smiling  on  the  poor  benighted  who 
have  yet  to  approach  his  altars.  Once,  at  least, 
he  spoke :  "  A  book  that  pleases  no  one  may  be 
poor.  The  book  that  pleases  every  one  is  de- 
testable." 

i  One  evidence  of  this  is  that  his  works  are  eagerly  sought 
after  and  treated  tenderly  by  the  second-hand  book-sellers. 
Some  of  them  command  fancy  prices. 


Edgar    Saltus 


I  seem  to  remember  to  have  heard  his  name  all 
my  life,  but  until  recently  I  have  not  read  one 
line  concerning  or  by  him.  I  find  that  my  friends, 
many  of  whom  are  extensive  readers,  are  in  the 
same  sad  state  of  ignorance.  There  is  an  excep- 
tion and  that  exception  is  responsible  for  my  con- 
version. For  six  years,  no  less,  Edna  Kenton  has 
been  urging  me  to  read  Edgar  Saltus.  She  has 
been  gently  insinuating  but  firm.  None  of  us  can 
struggle  forever  against  fate  or  a  determined 
woman.  In  the  end  I  capitulated,  purchased  a 
book  by  Edgar  Saltus  at  random,  and  read  it 
...  at  one  sitting.  I  sought  for  more.  As  most 
of  his  books  are  out  of  print  and  as  the  list  in 
the  Public  Library  conspicuously  omits  all  but 
one  of  his  best  opera  the  matter  presented  diffi- 
culties. However,  a  little  diligent  search  in  the 
old  book  shops  accomplished  wonders.  In  less 
than  two  weeks  I  had  dug  up  twenty-two  titles 
and  in  less  than  two  weeks  I  had  read  twenty- 
four;  since  then  I  have  consumed  the  other  four. 
There  are  few  writers  in  American  or  any  other 
literature  who  can  survive  such  a  test;  there  are 
few  writers  who  have  given  me  such  keen  pleasure. 

The  events  of  his  life,  mostly  remain  shrouded 
in  mystery.  His  comings  and  goings  are  not  re- 
ported in  the  newspapers ;  he  does  not  make  pub- 


Edgar    Saltus 


lie  speeches ;  and  his  name  is  seldom,  if  ever,  men- 
tioned "  among  those  present."  That  he  has  been 
married  and  has  one  daughter  "  Who's  Who  " 
proclaims,  together  with  the  few  biographical  de- 
tails mentioned  below.  That  is  all.  May  we  not 
herein  find  some  small  explanation  for  his  ap- 
parent neglect?  Many  thousands  of  lesser  men 
have  lifted  themselves  to  "  literary  "  prominence 
by  blowing  their  own  tubas  and  striking  their  own 
crotals.  Even  in  the  case  of  a  man  of  such  mani- 
fest genius  as  George  Bernard  Shaw  we  may 
be  permitted  to  doubt  if  he  would  be  so  well  known, 
had  he  not  taken  the  trouble  to  erect  monuments 
to  himself  on  every  possible  occasion  in  every 
possible  location.  Fame  is  a  quaint  old-fash- 
ioned body,  who  loves  to  be  pursued.  She  seldom, 
if  ever,  runs  after  anybody  except  in  her  well- 
known  role  of  necrophile. 

Edgar  Evertson  Saltus  was  born  in  New  York 
City  June  8,  1858.  He  is  a  lineal  descendant  of 
Admiral  Kornelis  Evertson,  the  commander  of  the 
Dutch  fleet,  who  captured  New  York  from  the  Eng- 
lish, August  9,  1673.  Francis  Saltus,  the  poet, 
was  his  brother.  He  enjoyed  a  cosmopolitan  edu- 
cation which  may  be  regarded  as  an  important 
factor  in  the  development  of  his  tastes  and  ideas. 
From  St.  Paul's  School  in  Concord  he  migrated  to 
[42] 


Edgar    Saltus 


the  Sorbonne  in  Paris,  and  thence  to  Heidelberg 
and  Munich,  where  he  bathed  in  the  newer  Ger- 
manic philosophies.  Finally  he  took  a  course  of 
law  at  Columbia  University.  The  influence  of 
this  somewhat  heterogeneous  seminary  life  is  mani- 
fest in  all  his  future  writing.  Beginning,  no 
doubt,  as  a  disciple  of  Emerson  in  New  England, 
he  fell  under  the  spell  of  Balzac  in  Paris,  of 
Schopenhauer  and  von  Hartmann  in  Germany. 
Pages  might  be  brought  forward  as  evidence  that 
he  had  a  thorough  classical  education.  His 
knowledge  of  languages  made  it  easy  for  him  to 
drink  deeply  at  many  fountain  heads.  If  Oscar 
Wilde  found  his  chief  inspiration  in  Huysmans's 
"  A  Rebours,"  it  is  certain  that  Saltus  also  quaffed 
intoxicating  draughts  at  this  source.  Indeed  in 
one  of  his  books  he  refers  to  Huysmans  as  his 
friend.  It  is  further  apparent  that  he  is  ac- 
quainted with  the  works  of  Barbey  d'Aurevilly, 
Josephin  Peladan,1  Baudelaire,  Mallarme,  Verlaine, 
Arthur  Rimbaud,  Catulle  Mendes,  and  Jules 
Laforgue,  especially  the  Laforgue  of  the  "  Moral- 
ites  Legendaires."  His  kinship  with  these  writers 
is  near,  but  through  this  mixed  blood  run  strains 
inherited  from  the  early  pagans,  the  mediaeval 

i  For  an  account  of  Peladan  see  my  essay  on  Erik  Satie 
in  "  Interpreters  and  Interpretations." 

[43] 


Edgar    Sal  tu  s 


monks,  the  Germanic  philosophers,  and  London  of 
the  Eighteen  Nineties  (although  there  is  not  one 
word  about  Saltus  in  Holbrook  Jackson's  book  of 
the  period),  and  perhaps,  after  all,  his  nearest  lit- 
erary relative  was  an  American,  Edgar  Allan  Poe, 
who  bequeathed  to  him  a  garret  full  of  strange 
odds  and  ends.  But  Saltus  surpasses  Poe  in  al- 
most every  respect  save  as  a  poet. 

Joseph  Hergesheimer  has  expressed  a  theory  to 
the  effect  that  great  art  is  always  provincial,  never 
cosmopolitan ;  that  only  provincial  art  is  universal 
in  its  appeal.  Like  every  other  theory  this  one  is 
to  a  large  extent  true,  but  Hergesheimer  in  his  ar- 
bitrary summing  up,  has  forgotten  the  fantastic. 
The  fantastic  in  literature,  in  art  of  any  kind,  can 
never  be  provincial.  The  work  of  Poe  is  not  pro- 
vincial ;  nor  is  that  of  Gustave  Moreau,  an  artist 
with  whom  Edgar  Saltus  can  very  readily  be  com- 
pared. If  you  have  visited  the  Mus£e  Moreau  in 
Paris  where,  in  the  studio  of  the  dead  painter,  is 
gathered  together  the  most  complete  collection  of 
his  works,  which  lend  themselves  to  endless  inspec- 
tion, you  can,  in  a  sense,  reconstruct  for  yourself 
an  idea  of  the  works  of  Edgar  Saltus.  One  finds 
therein  the  same  unicorns,  the  same  fabulous  mon- 
sters, the  same  virgins  on  the  rocks,  the  same  ex- 
otic and  undreamed  of  flora  and  fauna,  the  same 
[44] 


Edgar    Saltu  s 


mystic  paganism,  the  same  exquisitely  jewelled 
workmanship.  One  can  find  further  analogies  in 
the  Aubrey  Beardsley  of  "  Under  the  Hill,"  in  the 
elaborate  stylized  irony  of  Max  Beerbohm. 
Surely  not  provincials  these,  but  just  as  surely 
artists. 

Moreover  Saltus's  style  may  be  said  to  possess 
American  characteristics.  It  is  dashing  and 
rapid,  and  as  clear  as  the  water  in  Southern  seas. 
The  man  has  a  penchant  for  short  and  nervous 
sentences,  but  they  are  never  jerky.  They  ex- 
plode like  so  many  firecrackers  and  remind  one 
of  the  great  national  holiday !  .  .  .  Nevertheless 
Edgar  Saltus  should  have  been  born  in  France. 

His  essays,  whether  they  deal  with  literary 
criticism,  history,  religion  (which  is  almost  an 
obsession  with  this  writer),  devil-worship,  or  cook- 
ing, are  pervaded  by  that  rare  quality,  charm. 
Somewhere  he  quotes  a  French  aphorism : 

"  Eire  ri-che  n'est  pas  V affaire, 
Toute  V 'affaire  est  de  charmer," 

which  might  be  applied  to  his  own  work.  There 
is  a  deep  and  beneficent  guile  in  the  simplicity  of 
his  style,  as  limpid  as  a  brook,  and  yet,  as  over  a 
brook,  in  its  overtones  hover  a  myriad  of  spark- 
[45] 


Edgar    Sal  tus 


ling  dragon-flics  and  butterflies;  in  its  depths  lie 
a  plethora  of  trout.  He  deals  with  the  most  ob- 
struse  and  abstract  subjects  with  such  ease  and 
grace,  without  for  one  moment  laying  aside  the 
badge  of  authority,  that  they  assume  a  mysteri- 
ous fascination  to  catch  the  eye  of  the  passerby. 
In  his  fictions  he  has  sometimes  cultivated  a  more 
hectic  style,  but  that  in  itself  constitutes  one  of 
the  bases  of  its  richness.  Scarcely  a  word  but 
evokes  an  image,  a  strange,  bizarre  image,  often  a 
complication  of  images.  He  is  never  afraid  of 
the  colloquial,  never  afraid  of  slang  even,  and  he 
often  weaves  lovely  patterns  with  obsolete  or  tech- 
nical words.  These  lines,  in  which  Saltus  paid 
tribute  to  Gautier,  he  might,  with  equal  justice, 
have  applied  to  himself:  "  No  one  could  torment 
a  fancy  more  delicately  than  he ;  he  had  the  gift  of 
adjective;  he  scented  a  new  one  afar  like  a  truffle; 
and  from  the  Morgue  of  the  dictionary  he  dragged 
forgotten  beauties.  He  dowered  the  language  of 
his  day  with  every  tint  of  dawn  and  every  convul- 
sion of  sunset ;  he  invented  metaphors  that  were 
worth  a  king's  ransom,  and  figures  of  speech  that 
deserve  the  Prix  Montyon.  Then  reviewing  his 
work,  he  formulated  an  axiom  which  will  go  down 
with  a  nimbus  through  time:  Whomsoever  a 
thought  however  complex,  a  vision  however  apoca- 
[46] 


Edgar    Saltus 

lyptic,  surprises  without  words  to  convey  it,  is  not 
a  writer.  The  inexpressible  does  not  exist."  It 
is  impossible  to  taste  at  this  man's  table.  One 
must  eat  the  whole  dinner  to  appreciate  its  opulent 
inevitability.  Still  I  may  offer  a  few  olives,  a 
branch  or  two  of  succulent  celery  to  those  who 
have  not  as  yet  been  invited  to  sit  down.  One  of 
his  ladies  walks  the  Avenue  in  a  gown  the  "  color  of 
fried  smelts."  Such  figurative  phrases  as  "  Her 
eyes  were  of  that  green-grey  which  is  caught  in 
an  icicle  held  over  grass,"  "  The  sand  is  as  fine  as 
face  powder,  nuance  Rachel,  packed  hard," 
"  Death,  it  may  be,  is  not  merely  a  law  but  a  place, 
perhaps  a  garage  which  the  traveller  reaches  on  a 
demolished  motor,  but  whence  none  can  proceed 
until  all  old  scores  are  paid,"  "  The  ocean  resem- 
bled nothing  so  much  as  an  immense  blue  syrup," 
"  She  was  a  pale  freckled  girl,  with  hair  the  shade 
of  Bavarian  beer,"  "  The  sun  rose  from  the  ocean 
like  an  indolent  girl  from  her  bath,"  "  Night,  that 
queen  who  reigns  only  when  she  falls,  shook  out  the 
shroud  she  wears  for  gown,"  are  to  be  found  on 
every  page.  Certain  phrases  sound  good  to  him 
and  are  re-used :  "  Disappearances  are  decep- 
tive," "  ruedelapaixian "  (to  describe  a  dress), 
"  toilet  of  the  ring  "  (lifted  from  the  bull-fight  in 
"  Mr.  Incoul's  Misadventure  "  to  do  service  in  an 
[47] 


Edgar    Saltus 


account  of  the  arena  games  under  Nero  in  "  Im- 
perial Purple"),  but  repetition  of  this  kind  is  in- 
frequent in  his  works  and  seemingly  unnecessary. 
Ideas  and  phrases,  endless  chains  of  them,  spurt 
from  the  point  of  his  ardent  pen.  Standing  on  his 
magic  carpet  he  shakes  new  sins  out  of  his  sleeve  as 
a  conjurer  shakes  out  white  rabbits  and  juggles 
words  with  an  exquisite  dexterity.  He  is,  indeed, 
the  jongUur  de  noire  ame! 

From  the  beginning,  his  style  has  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  few  and  no  one,  I  am  sure,  has 
written  a  three  line  review  of  a  book  by 
Sultus  without  referring  to  it.  Mme.  Ann-lie 
Rives  has  quoted  Oscar  Wilde  as  saying  to  her  one 
night  at  dinner,  "  In  Edgar  Saltus's  work  passion 
struggles  with  grammar  on  every  page!"  Perci- 
val  Pollard  has  dubbed  him  a  "  prose  paranoiac," 
and  Elbert  Hubbard  says,  "  He  writes  so  well  that 
he  grows  enamoured  of  his  own  style  and  is  sub- 
dued like  the  dyer's  hand;  he  becomes  intoxicated 
on  the  lure  of  lines  and  the  roll  of  phrases.  He 
is  woozy  on  words  —  locoed  by  syntax  and  pros- 
ody. The  libation  he  pours  is  flavoured  with  eu- 
phues.  It  is  all  like  a  cherry  in  a  morning  Mar- 
tini."  A  phrase  which  Remy  de  Gourmont  uses 
to  describe  Villiers  de  1'Isle  Adam  might  be  applied 
with  equal  success  to  the  author  of  "  The  Lords  of 
[48] 


Edgar    Saltus 


the  Ghostland  " :  "  L'idealisme  de  Villiers  etait  un 
veritable  idealisme  verbal,  c'est-a-dire  qu'tt  croyait 
vraiment  a  la  puissance  evocatrice  des  mots,  a 
leur  vertu  magique."  And  we  may  listen  to  Sal- 
tus's  own  testimony  in  the  matter:  "  It  may  be 
noted  that  in  literature  only  three  things  count, 
style,  style  polished,  style  repolished;  these 
imagination  and  the  art  of  transition  aid,  but  do 
not  enhance.  As  for  style,  it  may  be  defined  as  the 
sorcery  of  syllables,  the  fall  of  sentences,  the  use 
of  the  exact  term,  the  pursuit  of  a  repetition 
even  unto  the  thirtieth  and  fortieth  line.  Gram- 
mar is  an  adjunct  but  not  an  obligation.  No 
grammarian  ever  wrote  a  thing  that  was  fit  to 
read." 

At  his  worst  —  and  his  worst  can  be  monstrous ! 
—  garbed  fantastically  in  purple  patches  and 
gaudy  rags,  he  wallows  in  muddy  puddles  of  Bur- 
gundy and  gold  dust;  even  then  he  is  unflagging 
and  holds  the  attention  in  a  vise.  His  women 
have  eyes  which  are  purple  pools,  their  hair  is 
bitten  by  combs,  their  lips  are  scarlet  threads. 
Even  the  names  of  his  characters,  Roanoke  Rari- 
tan,  Ruis  Ixar,  Tancred  Ennever,  Erastus  Varick, 
Gulian  Verplank,  Melancthon  Orr,  Justine  Dun- 
nellen,  Roland  Mistrial,  Giselle  Oppensheim,  Yoda 
Jones,  Stella  Sixmuth,  Violet  Silverstairs,  Salb'e 
[49] 


Edgar    Sal  tu  s 


Malakoff,  Shane  Wyvell,  Dugald  Maule,  Eden 
Menemon  (it  will  be  observed  that  he  has  a  per- 
sistent, balefully  procacious,  perhaps,  indeed, 
Freudian  predilection  for  the  letters  U,  V,  and 
X),1  are  fantastic  and  fabulous  .  .  .  sometimes 
almost  frivolous.  And  here  we  may  find  our 
paradox.  His  sense  of  humour  is  abnormal, 
sometimes  expressed  directly  by  way  of  epi- 
gram or  sly  wording  but  may  it  not  also  occa- 
sionally express  itself  indirectly  in  these  purple 
towers  of  painted  velvet  words,  extravagant 
fables,  and  unbelievable  characters  he  is  so  fond  of 
erecting?  Some  of  his  work  almost  approaches 
the  burlesque  in  form.  He  carries  his  manner  to 
a  point  where  he  seems  to  laugh  at  it  himself,  and 
then,  with  a  touch  of  poignant  realism  or  a  poetic 
phrase,  he  confounds  the  reader's  judgment.  The 
virtuosity  of  the  performance  is  breath-taking! 

He  is  always  the  snob  (somewhere  he  defends  the 
snob  in  an  essay):  rich  food  ("half-mourning" 
[artichoke  hearts  and  truffles],  "  filet  of  reindeer," 
a  cygnet  in  its  plumage  bearing  an  orchid  in  its 
beak,  "  heron's  eggs  whipped  with  wine  into  an 

1  You  will  find  an  account  of  Balzac's  interesting  theory 
regarding  names  and  letters,  which  may  well  have  had  a  di- 
rect influence  on  Edgar  Saltus,  in  Saltus's  "  Balzac,"  p.  29 
et  seq.  For  a  precisely  contrary  theory  turn  to  "  The  Nam- 
ing of  Streets  "  in  Max  Beerbohm's  "  Yet  Again." 

[50] 


Edgar    Saltu  s 


amber  foam,"  "  mashed  grasshoppers  baked  in 
saffron  "),  rich  clothes,  rich  people  interest  him. 
There  is  no  poverty  in  his  books.  His  creatures 
do  not  toil.  They  cut  coupons  off  bonds.  Some- 
times they  write  or  paint,  but  for  the  most  part 
they  are  free  to  devote  themselves  exclusively  to 
the  pursuit  of  emotional  experience,  eating,  read- 
ing, and  travelling  the  while.  And  when  they 
have  finished  dining  they  wipe  their  hands,  wetted 
in  a  golden  bowl,  in  the  curly  hair  of  a  tiny  serv- 
ing boy.  A  character  in  "  Madam  Sapphira  " 
explains  this  tendency :  "  A  writer,  if  he  happens 
to  be  worth  his  syndicate,  never  chooses  a  sub- 
ject. The  subject  chooses  him.  He  writes  what 
he  must,  not  what  he  might.  That's  the  thing  the 
public  can't  understand." 

There  is  always  a  preoccupation  with  ancient 
life,  sometimes  freely  expressed  as  in  "  Imperial 
Purple,"  but  more  often  suggested  by  plot,  phrase, 
or  scene.  He  kills  more  people  than  Caligula 
killed  during  the  whole  course  of  his  bloody  reign. 
Murders,  suicides,  and  other  forms  of  sudden  death 
flash  their  sensations  across  his  pages.  Webster 
and  the  other  Elizabethans  never  steeped  themselves 
so  completely  in  gore.  In  almost  every  book  there 
is  an  orgy  of  death  and  he  has  been  ingenious  in 
varying  its  forms.  The  poisons  of  rafflesia, 
[51] 


Edgar    Saltus 


muscarinc,  and  orsere  arc  introduced  in  his  fic- 
tions ;  somewhere  he  devotes  an  essay  to  toxicology. 
Daggers  with  blades  like  needles,  pistols,  drown- 
irigs,  HNpliy  \iations,  play  their  rules  .  .  .  and  in 
one  book  there  is  a  crucifixion ! 

Again  I  find  that  Mr.  Saltus  has  said  his  word 
on  the  subject  :  "In  fiction  as  in  history  it  is 
the  shudder  that  tells.  Hugo  could  find  no  higher 
compliment  for  Baudelaire  than  to  announce  that 
the  latter  had  discovered  a  new  one.  For  new 
shudders  are  as  rare  as  new  vices;  antiquity  has 
made  them  all  seem  trite.  The  apt  commingling 
of  the  horrible  and  the  trivial,  pathos  and  ferocity, 
is  yet  the  one  secret  of  enduring  work  —  a  secret, 
parenthetically,  which  Hugo  knew  as  no  one  else." 

His  fables  depend  in  most  instances  upon  sexual 
abberrations,  curious  coincidences,  fantastic  hap- 
penings. Rapes  and  incests  decorate  his  pages. 
He  does  not  ask  us  to  believe  his  monstrous 
stories;  he  compels  us  to.  He  carries  us  by 
means  of  the  careless  expenditure  of  many  pas- 
sages of  somewhat  ribald  beauty,  along  with  him, 
captive  to  his  pervasive  charm.  We  are  con- 
stantly reminded,  in  endless,  almost  wearisome, 
imagery,  of  gold  and  purple,  foreign  languages, 
esoteric  philosophies,  foods  the  names  of  which 
[52] 


Edgar    Saltus 


strike  the  ear  as  graciously  as  they  themselves 
might  strike  the  tongue.  From  Huysmans  he  has 
learned  the  formula  for  ravishing  all  our  senses. 
Words  are  often  used  for  their  own  sakes  to  call 
up  images,  colour  flits  across  every  page,  across, 
indeed,  every  line.  We  taste,  we  smell,  we  see. 
There  is  the  pomp  and  circumstance  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  ritual  in  these  pages,  the  Roman  Catholic 
ritual  well  supplied  with  mythical  monsters,  sing- 
ing flowers,  and  blooming  women.  Strange  scar- 
let and  mulberry  threads  form  the  woof  of  these 
tapestries,  threads  pulled  with  great  labour  from 
all  the  art  of  the  past.  There  is,  in  much  of  his 
work,  an  undercurrent  of  subtle  sensuous  erotic 
poison ;  in  one  of  her  stories  Edna  Kenton  tells  us 
that  chartreuse  jaune  and  bananas  form  such  a 
poison.  There  is  a  suggestion  of  chartreuse  jaune 
and  bananas  in  much  of  the  work  of  Edgar  Saltus. 
He  is  constantly  obsessed  by  the  mysteries  of 
love  and  death,  the  veils  of  Isis,  the  secrets  of 
Moses.  While  others  were  delving  in  the  Amer- 
ican soil  his  soul  sped  afar;  he  is  not  even  a  cos- 
mopolitan ;  he  is  a  Greek,  a  Brahmin,  a  worship- 
per of  Ishtar.  There  is  a  prodigious  and  prodigal 
display  of  genius  in  his  work,  savannahs  of  epi- 
grams, forests  of  ideas,  phrases  enough  to  fill  the 
[53] 


Edgar    Saltus 


ocean.1  There  is  enough  material  in  the  romances 
of  Edgar  Saltus  to  furnish  all  the  cinema  com- 
panies in  America  with  scenarios  for  a  twelve- 
month. 

Early  in  the  Eighties  a  writer  in  "  The  Argus  " 
referred  to  him  as  "  the  prose  laureate  of  pes- 
simism." His  philosophy  may  be  summed  up  in  a 
few  phrases:  Nothing  matters,  Whatever  will  IK- 
is,  Everything  is  possible,  and  Since  we  live  today 
let  us  make  the  best  of  it  and  live  in  Paris.  And 
through  all  the  opera  of  Saltus,  through  the  rapes 
and  murders,  tin-  nligious,  philosophical,  and  so- 
cial discussions,  rings  Cherubino's  still  unanswered 
question,  Cht  cota  e  amor?  like  a  persistent  refrain. 

After  having  said  so  much  it  seems  unnecessary 
to  add  that  I  strongly  advise  the  reader  to  go  out 
and  buy  all  the  books  of  Edgar  Saltus  he  can 
find  (and  to  find  many  will  require  patience  and 
dexterity,  as  most  of  them  are  out  of  print).  To 
further  aid  him  in  the  matter  I  have  prepared  a 
short  catalogue  and  with  his  permission  I  will 
guide  him  gently  through  this  new  land.  I  have 
also  added  a  list  of  publishers,  together  with  the 
dates  of  publication,  although  I  cannot,  in  some 

»uWit  and  Wisdom  from  Edgar  Saltus n  by  G.  F. 
Monkshood  and  George  Gamble,  and  "The  Cynic's  Posy," 
a  collection  of  epigrams,  the  majority  of  which  are  taken 
from  Saltus,  may  be  brought  forward  in  evidence. 

[54] 


Edgar    Saltus 


instances,  vouch  for  their  having  been  the  orig- 
inal imprints.  It  may  be  noted  that  almost  all  his 
books  have  been  reprinted  in  England.1 

"  Balzac,"  2  signed  Edgar  Evertson  Saltus  (for 
a  time  he  used  his  full  name)  is  such  good  literary 
criticism  and  such  good  personal  biography  that 
one  wishes  the  author  had  tried  the  form  again. 
He  did  not  save  in  his  prefaces  to  his  translations, 
his  essay  on  Victor  Hugo,  and  his  short  study  of 
Oscar  Wilde.  In  its  miniature  way,  for  the  book 
is  slight,  "  Balzac  "  is  as  good  of  its  kind  as  James 
Huneker's  "  Chopin,"  Auguste  Ehrhard's  "  Fanny 
Elssler,"  and  Frank  Harris's  "  Oscar  Wilde."  In 
style  it  is  superior  to  any  of  these.  It  is  a  very 
pretty  performance  for  a  debut  and  if  it  is  out 
of  print,  as  I  think  it  is,  some  enterprising  pub- 
lisher should  serve  it  to  the  public  in  a  new  edition. 
The  two  most  interesting  chapters,  largely  anec- 
dotal but  continuously  illuminating,  are  entitled 
"  The  Vagaries  of  Genius,"  wherein  one  may  find 
an  infinitude  of  details  concerning  the  manner  in 

i  Certain  books  by  Edgar  Saltus  have  been  announced 
from  time  to  time  but  have  never  appeared;  these  include: 
"  Annochiatura,"  "  Immortal  Greece,"  "  Our  Lady  of 
Beauty,"  "  Cimmeria,"  "Daughters  of  Dream,"  "Scaffolds 
and  Altars,"  "Prince  Charming,"  and  "The  Crimson  Cur- 
tain." 

zHoughton,  Mifflin  and  Co.;  1884.  Reprinted  1887  and 
1890. 

[55] 


Edgar    Saltus 


which  Balzac  worked,  and  "  The  Chase  for  Gold," 
but  tucked  in  somewhere  else  is  a  charming  digres- 
sion about  realism  in  fiction  and  the  bibliography 
should  still  be  of  use  to  students.  Saltus  tells 
us  that  Balzac  took  all  his  characters'  names  from 
life,  frequently  from  signs  which  he  observed  on  the 
street.  In  this  respect  Saltus  certainly  has  not 
followed  him;  in  another  he  has  been  more  im- 
itative: I  refer  to  the  Bulgarian  trick  of  carry- 
ing pi-opli-  from  one  book  to  another. 

"  The  Philosophy  of  Disenchantment  "  1  is  an 
ingratiating  account  of  the  pessimism  of  Schopen- 
hauer, a  philosophy  with  which  it  would  seem,  Sal- 
tus is  fully  in  accord.  Two-thirds  of  the  book  is 
allotted  to  Schopenhauer,  but  the  remainder  is 
devoted  to  an  exposition  of  the  teachings  of  von 
Hartmann  and  a  final  essay,  "  Is  Life  an  Afflic- 
tion? "  which  query  the  author  seems  to  answer  in 
the  affirmative.  One  of  the  best-known  of  the 
Saltus  books,  "  The  Philosophy  of  Disenchant- 
ment "  is  written  in  a  clear,  translucent  style 
without  the  iridescence  which  decorates  his  later 
opera. 

"  After-Dinner  Stories  from  Balzac,  done  into 
English  by  Myndart  Verelst  (obviously  E.  S.) 

i  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Co.;  1885.  Reprinted  by  the  Bel- 
ford  Co. 

[56] 


Edgar    Saltus 


with  an  introduction  by  Edgar  Saltus  "  *  contains 
four  of  the  Frenchman's  tales,  "  The  Red  Inn," 
"  Madame  Firmiani,"  "  The  'Grande  Breteche  '," 
and  "  Madame  de  Beauseant."  The  introduction 
is  written  in  Saltus's  most  beguiling  manner  and 
may  be  referred  to  as  one  of  the  most  delightful 
short  essays  on  Balzac  extant.  The  dedication  is 
to  V.  A.  B. 

"  The  Anatomy  of  Negation  "  2  is  Saltus's  best 
book  in  his  earlier  manner,  which  is  as  free  from 
flamboyancy  as  early  Gothic,  and  one  of  his  most 
important  contributions  to  our  literature.  The 
work  is  a  history  of  antitheism  from  Kapila  to 
Leconte  de  Lisle  and,  while  the  writer  in  a  brief 
prefatory  notice  disavows  all  responsibility  for 
the  opinions  of  others,  it  can  readily  be  felt  that 
the  book  is  a  labour  of  love  and  that  his  sympathy 
lies  with  the  iconoclasts  through  the  centuries. 
The  chapter  entitled,  "  The  Convulsions  of  the 
Church,"  a  brief  history  of  Christianity,  is  one  of 
the  most  brilliant  passages  to  be  found  in  any  of 
the  works  of  this  very  brilliant  writer.  Indeed,  if 
you  are  searching  for  the  soul  of  Saltus  you  could 
not  do  better  than  turn  to  this  chapter.  Of 

i  George  J.  Coombes;  1886.     Reprinted  by  Brentano's. 
2Scribner  and  Welford;  1887.     Revised  edition,  Belford, 
Clarke  and  Co.;  1889. 


[57] 


Edgar    S  al  tu  s 


Jesus  he  says,  "  He  was  the  most  entrancing  of 
nihilists  but  no  innovator."  Here  is  another  ex- 
cerpt :  "  Paganism  was  not  dead ;  it  had  merely 
fallen  asleep.  Isis  gave  way  to  Mary ;  apotheosis 
was  replaced  by  canonization;  the  divinities  were 
succeeded  by  saints;  and,  Africa  aiding,  the 
Church  surged  from  mythology  with  the  Trinity 
for  tiara."  A^ain:  "  Satan  was  Jew  from  horn 
to  hoof.  The  registry  of  his  birth  is  contained  in 
the  evolution  of  Hebraic  thought."  Never  was 
any  book  so  full  of  erudition  and  ideas  so  easy  to 
read,  a  fascinating  opus,  written  by  a  true  scep- 
tic. Following  the  Baedeker  system,  adopted  so 
amusingly  by  Henry  T.  Finck  in  his  "  Songs  and 
Song  Writers,"  this  book  should  be  triple-starred. 

"  Tales  before  Supper,  from  Theophile  Gautier 
and  Prosper  Me'rim^e,  told  in  English  by  Myndart 
Verejfit  and  delayed  with  a  proem  by  Edgar  Sal- 
tus." l  Translation  again.  The  stories  are 
"  Avatar  "  and  "  The  Venus  of  Ille."  The  essay 
at  the  beginning  is  a  very  charming  performance. 
This  book  is  dedicated  to  E.  C.  R. 

"Mr.  Incoul's  Misadventure,"2  Saltus's  first 
novel,  is  also  the  best  of  his  numerous  fictions.  It, 
too,  should  be  triple-starred  in  any  guide  book 

iBrentano's;  1887. 

2  Benjamin  and  Bell;  1887. 

[58] 


Edgar    Saltus 


through  this  opiis-la.nd.  In  it  will  be  found,  super- 
distilled,  the  very  essence  of  all  the  best  qualities 
of  this  writer.  It  is  written  with  fine  reserve; 
the  story  holds ;  the  characters  are  unusually  well 
observed,  felt,  and  expressed.  Irony  shines 
through  the  pages  and  the  final  cadence  includes  a 
murder  and  a  suicide.  For  the  former,  bromide 
of  potassium  and  gas  are  utilized  in  combination ; 
for  the  latter  laudanum,  taken  hypodermically, 
suffices.  There  are  scenes  in  Biarritz  and  North- 
ern Spain  which  include  a  thrilling  picture  of  a 
bull-fight.  There  is  an  interesting  glimpse  of  the 
Paris  Opera.  There  is  a  description  of  an  epi- 
thumetic  library  which  embraces  many  forbidden 
titles,  (How  that  "  baron  of  moral  endeavour  .  .  . 
the  professional  hound  of  heaven,"  Anthony  Corn- 
stock,  would  have  gloated  over  these  shelves!),  a 
vibrant  page  about  Goya,  and  another  about  a 
Thibetian  cat.  Many  passages  could  be  brought 
forward  as  evidence  that  Mr.  Saltus  loves  the  fire- 
side sphynx.  The  Mr.  Incoul  of  the  title  gives  one 
a  very  excellent  idea  of  how  inhuman  a  just  man 
can  be.  There  is  not  a  single  slip  in  the  skilful 
delineation  of  this  monster.  The  beautiful  heroine 
vaguely  shambles  into  a  tapestried  background. 
She  is  moyen  age  in  her  appealing  weakness.  The 
jeune  premier,  Lenox  Leigh,  is  well  drawn  and 
[59] 


Edgar    Saltus 


lighted.  Time  after  time  the  author  strikes  subtle 
harmonies  which  must  have  delighted  Henry 
James.  Why  is  this  book  not  dedicated  to  the 
author  of  "  The  Turn  of  the  Screw  "  rather  than 
to  "  E.  A.  S."?  The  pages  are  permeated  with 
suspense,  horror,  information,  irony,  and  charm, 
about  evenly  distributed,  all  of  which  qualities  are 
expressed  in  the  astounding  title  (astounding  after 
you  have  read  the  book).  There  is  a  white  mar- 
riage in  this  tale,  stipulated  in  the  hymeneal  bond. 
In  1877  Tschaikovsky  made  a  similar  agreement 
with  the  woman  he  married. 

*  The  Truth  About  Tristrem  Varick  "  1  is  writ- 
ten with  the  same  restraint  which  characterizes  the 
style  of  "  Mr.  Incoul's  Misadventure,"  a  restraint 
seldom  to  be  encountered  in  Saltus's  later  fictions. 
One  of  the  angles  of  the  plot  in  which  an  irate 
father  attempts  to  suppress  a  marriage  by  sug- 
gesting incest,  bobs  up  twice  again  in  his  stoi 
for  the  last  time  nearly  thirty  years  later  in 
"The  Mmish-r."  Irony  is  the  keynote  of  the 
u<>rk,  a  keynote  sounded  in  the  dedication,  "To 
my  master,  the  philosopher  of  the  unconscious, 
Eduard  von  Hartmann,  this  attempt  in  ornamen- 
tal disenchantment  is  dutifully  inscribed."  The 
heroine,  as  frequently  happens  with  Saltus  hero- 

i  Belford  Co.;  1888. 

[60] 


Edgar    Saltus 


ines,  is  veiled  with  the  mysteries  of  Isis ;  we  do 
not  see  the  workings  of  her  mind  and  so  we  can 
sympathize  with  Varick,  who  pursues  her  with 
persistent  misunderstanding  and  arduous  devotion 
through  240  pages.  He  attributes  her  aloofness 
to  his  father's  unfounded  charge  against  his 
mother  and  her  father.  When  he  learns  that  she 
has  borne  a  child  he  suspects  rape  and,  with  a 
needle-like  dagger  that  leaves  no  sign,  he  kills  the 
man  he  believes  to  have  seduced  her.  Then  he 
goes  to  the  lady  to  receive  her  thanks,  only  to  learn 
that  she  loved  the  man  he  has  killed.  Varick 
gives  himself  into  the  hands  of  the  police,  con- 
fesses, and  is  delivered  to  justice,  the  lady  gloat- 
ing. A  strikingly  pessimistic  tale,  only  less  good 
than  "  Mr.  Incoul."  There  is  superb  writing  in 
these  pages,  many  delightful  passages.  La  Cener- 
entola  and  Lucrezia  Borgia  are  mentioned  in  pass- 
ing. Saltus  has  (or  had)  an  exuberant  fondness 
for  Donizetti  and  Rossini.  Here  is  a  telling  bit 
of  art  criticism  (attributed  to  a  character)  de- 
scriptive of  the  Paris  Salon :  "  There  was  a 
Manet  or  two,  a  Moreau  and  a  dozen  excellent 
landscapes,  but  the  rest  represented  the  apotheosis 
of  mediocrity.  The  pictures  which  Gerome, 
Cabanel,  Bouguereau,  and  the  acolytes  of  these 
pastry-cooks  exposed  were  stupid  and  sterile  as 
[61] 


Edgar    Sal  tu  s 


church  doors."  This  required  courage  in  1888. 
One  wonders  when-  Km  von  Cox  was  at  the  time! 
Give  this  book  at  least  two  stars. 

Kden  "  '  is  the  third  of  Saltus's  fictions  and 
possibly  the  poorest  of  the  three.  Eden  is  the 
name  of  the  heroine  whose  further  name  is  Mene- 
mon.  Stuyvesant  Square  is  her  original  habitat 
but  she  migrates  to  Fifth  Avenue.  The  tide  is 
flowing  South  again  nowadays.  Her  husband  is 
almost  too  good,  but  nevertheless  appearances 
seem  against  him  until  he  explains  that  the  lady 
with  whom  he  has  been  seen  in  a  cab  is  his  daugh- 
ter by  a  former  marriage,  and  the  young  man  who 
seems  to  have  been  making  lo\,  to  Kdrn  is  his  son. 
Characteristic  of  Saltus  is  the  use  of  the  Spanish 
word  for  nightingale.  There  are  no  deaths,  no 
suicides,  no  murders  in  these  pages:  a  very 
eunuch  of  a  book !  A  motto  from  Tasso,  "  Perdute 
e  tut  to  il  tempo  che  m  amor  non  si  spende  "  adorns 
the  title  page  and  the  work  is  dedicated  to 

"  E .  H  Amicissima." 

With  "  The  Pace  that  Kills  "  2  Saltus  doffs  his 
old  coat  and  dons  a  new  and  gaudier  garment. 
Possibly  he  owed  this  change  in  style  to  the  influ- 
ence of  the  London  movement  so  interestingly  de- 

i  Bel  ford,  Clarke  and  Co.;  1888. 
sBelford  Co.;  1889. 

[62] 


Edgar    Saltus 


scribed  in  Holbrook  Jackson's  "  The  Eighteen- 
Nineties."  The  book  begins  with  abortion  and 
ends  with  a  drop  over  a  ferry-boat  into  the  icy 
East  River.  There  is  an  averted  strangulation  of 
a  baby  and  for  the  second  time  in  a  Saltus  opus  a 
dying  millionaire  leaves  his  fortune  to  the  St. 
Nicholas  Hospital.  Was  Saltus  ballyhooing  for 
this  institution?  The  hero  is  a  modern  Don  Juan. 
Alphabet  Jones  appears  occasionally,  as  he  does  in 
many  of  the  other  novels.  This  Balzacian  trick 
obsessed  the  author  for  a  time.  The  book  is 
dedicated  to  John  S.  Rutherford  and  bears  as  a 
motto  on  its  title  page  this  quotation  from  Rabus- 
son:  "  Pourquoi  la  mort?  Dites,  plutot,  pour- 
quoi  la  vie?  " 

In  "  A  Transaction  in  Hearts  "  l  the  Reverend 
Christopher  Gonfallon  falls  in  love  with  his  wife's 
sister,  Claire.  A  New  England  countess,  a  sub- 
sidiary figure,  suggests  d'Aurevilly.  This  story 
originally  appeared  in  "  Lippincott's  Magazine  " 
and  the  editor  who  accepted  it  was  dismissed.  A 
year  or  so  later  a  new  editor  published  "  The  Pic- 
ture of  Dorian  Gray."  Still  later  Saltus  tells  me 
he  met  Oscar  Wilde  in  London  and  the  Irish  poet 
asked  him  for  news  of  the  new  editor.  "  He's  quite 
well,"  answered  Saltus.  Wilde  did  not  seem  to  be 

iBelford  Co.;  1889. 

[63] 


Edgar    Sal  tu  s 


pleased :  "  When  your  story  appeared  the  editor 
was  removed;  when  mine  appeared  I  supposed  he 
would  be  hanged.  Now  you  tell  me  he  is  quite 
well.  It  is  most  disheartening."  Saltus  then 
asked  Wilde  why  Dorian  Gray  was  cut  by  his 
friends.  Wilde  turned  it  over.  "  I  fancy  they 
saw  him  eating  fish  with  his  knife." 

"  A  Transient  Guest  and  other  Episodes  "  *  con- 
tains three  short  tales  besides  the  title  story: 
"  The  Grand  Duke's  Riches,"  an  account  of  an 
intfrnious  robbery  at  the  Brevoort,  "  A  Maid  of 
Athens,"  and  "  Fausta,"  a  story  of  love,  revenge, 
and  death  in  Cuba.  If  the  final  cadence  of  the 
book  is  a  dagger  thrust  the  prelude  is  a  subtle  poi- 
son, rafflesia,  a  Sumatran  plant,  intended  for  the 
IRTO,  Tancred  Ennever,  but  consumed  with  fatal 
results  by  his  faithful  fox  terrior,  Zut  Alors. 
The  story  is  arresting  and,  as  frequently  happens 
in  Saltus  romances,  a  man  finds  himself  no  match 
for  a  woman.  "  A  Transient  Guest  "  is  dedicated 
to  K.  J.  M. 

The  slender  volume  entitled  "  Love  and  Lore  "  2 
contains  a  short  series  of  slight  essays,  interrupted 
by  slighter  sonnets,  on  subjects  which,  for  the 
most  part,  Saltus  has  treated  at  greater  length 

iBelford,  Clarke  and  Co.;  1889. 
2  Bel  ford  Co.;  1890. 

[64] 


Edgar    Saltus 


and  with  greater  effect  elsewhere.  He  makes  a 
whimsical  plea  for  a  modern  revival  of  the  Court 
of  Love  and  in  "  Morality  in  Fiction  "  he  derides 
that  Puritanism  in  American  letters  whose  dark 
scourge  H.  L.  Mencken  still  pursues  with  a  cat-o'- 
nine-tails  and  a  hand  grenade.  He  gives  us  a  fan- 
ciful set  of  rules  for  a  novelist  which,  happily,  he 
has  ignored  in  his  own  fictions.  The  most  inter- 
esting, personal,  and  charming  chapter,  although 
palpably  derived  from  "  The  Philosophy  of  Dis- 
enchantment," is  that  entitled  "  What  Pessimism 
Is  Not " ;  here  again  we  are  in  the  heart  of  the 
author's  philosophy.  Those  who  like  to  read 
books  about  the  Iberian  Peninsula  can  scarcely 
afford  to  miss  "  Fabulous  Andalucia,"  in  which  an 
able  brief  for  the  race  of  Othello  is  presented: 
"  Under  the  Moors,  Cordova  surpassed  Baghdad. 
They  wrote  more  poetry  than  all  the  other  nations 
put  together.  It  was  they  who  invented  rhyme; 
they  wrote  everything  in  it,  contracts,  challenges, 
treaties,  treatises,  diplomatic  notes  and  messages 
of  love.  From  the  earliest  khalyf  down  to  Boab- 
dil,  the  courts  of  Granada,  of  Cordova  and  of 
Seville  were  peopled  with  poets,  or,  as  they  were 
termed,  with  makers  of  Ghazels.  It  was  they  who 
gave  us  the  dulcimer,  the  hautbois  and  the  guitar; 
it  was  they  who  invented  the  serenade.  We  are 
[65] 


Edgar    Saltus 


indebted  to  them  for  algebra  and  for  the  canons  of 
chivalry  as  well.  ...  It  was  from  them  that  came 
the  first  threads  of  light  which  preceded  the 
Renaissance.  Throughout  mediaeval  Europe  they 
were  the  only  people  that  thought."  The  book  is 
dedicated  to  Edgar  Fawcett,  "  perfect  poet  — 
perfect  friend  "  and  is  embellished  with  a  portrait 
of  its  author. 

"  The  Story  Without  a  Name  "  l  is  a  transla- 
tion of  "  Une  Histoire  Sans  Norn "  of  Barbey 
d'Aurevilly,  and  is  preceded  by  one  of  Saltus's 
charming  and  atmospheric  literary  essays,  the  best 
on  d'Aurevilly  to  be  found  in  English.  When  this 
book  first  appeared,  Mr.  Saltus  informs  me,  a  re- 
viewer, "  who  contrived  to  be  both  amusing  and 
complimentary,"  said  that  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  was 
a  fictitious  person  and  that  this  vile  story  was 
Saltus's  own  vile  work ! 

"  Mary  Magdalen,"  2  on  the  whole  disappoint- 
ing, is  nevertheless  one  of  the  important  Sal- 
tus opera.  The  opening  chapters,  like  Oscar 
Wilde's  Salome  (published  two  years  later  than 
"Mary  Magdalen")  owe  much  to  Flaubert's 
"  Herodias."  The  dance  on  the  hands  is  a  detail 

iBelford  Co.;  1891. 

zBelford  Co.;  1891.  Reprinted  by  Mitchell  Kennerley; 
1906. 

[66] 


Edgar    Saltus 


from  Flaubert,  a  detail  which  Tissot  followed  in 
his  painting  of  Salome.  .  .  .  From  the  later  chap- 
ters it  is  possible  that  Paul  Heyse  filched  an  idea. 
The  turning  point  of  his  drama,  Maria  von  Mag- 
dala,  hinges  on  Judas's  love  for  Mary  and  his 
jealousy  of  Jesus.  Saltus  develops  exactly  this 
situation.  Heyse's  play  appeared  in  1899,  eight 
years  after  Saltus's  novel.  However,  Saltus  has 
protested  to  me  that  it  is  an  idea  that  might  have 
occurred  to  any  one.  "  I  put  it  in,"  he  added,  "  to 
make  the  action  more  nervous."  The  book  begins 
well  with  a  description  of  Herod's  court  and  Rome 
in  Judea,  but  as  a  whole  it  is  unsatisfactory. 
Once  the  plot  develops  Saltus  seems  to  lose  in- 
terest. He  lazily  quotes  whole  scenes  from  the 
Bible  (George  Moore  very  cleverly  avoided  this 
pitfall  in  "The  Brook  Kerith").  The  early 
chapters  suggest  "  Imperial  Purple,"  which  ap- 
peared a  year  later  and  upon  which  he  may  well 
have  been  at  work  at  this  time.  There  is  a  fore- 
shadowing, too,  of  "  The  Lords  of  the  Ghost- 
land  "  in  a  very  amusing  and  slightly  cynical  pas- 
sage in  which  Mary  as  a  child  listens  to  Sephorah 
the  sorceress  tell  legends  and  myths  of  Assyria  and 
Egypt.  Mary  interrupts  with  "  Why  you  mean 
Moses !  You  mean  Noah !  "  just  as  a  child  of  to- 
day, if  confronted  with  the  situations  in  the  Greek 
[67] 


Edgar    Saltus 


dramas  would  attribute  them  to  Bayard  Veiller  or 
Eugene  Walter.  Saltus  is  too  much  of  a  scholar 
to  find  much  novelty  in  Christianity.  But  aside 
from  this  passage  cynicism  is  lacking  from  this 
book,  a  quality  which  makes  another  story  on  the 
same  theme,  "  Le  Procurateur  de  Jud6e,"  one  of 
the  greatest  short  stories  in  any  language. 
.Mary's  sins  are  quickly  passed  over  and  we  come 
almost  immediately  to  her  conversion.  Herod 
Anfipas,  with  his  "fan-shaped  beard"  and  vacil- 
lating Pilate,  quite  comparable  to  a  modern  poli- 
tician, are  the  most  human  and  best-realized  char- 
acters in  a  book  which  should  have  been  greater 
than  it  is.  "  Mary  Magdalen  "  is  dedicated  to 
Henry  James. 

"  The  facts  in  the  Curious  Case  of  H.  Hyrtl, 
esq."  *  is  a  slight  yam  in  the  mellow  Stevenson 
manner,  with  a  kindly  old  gentleman  as  the  mes- 
senger of  the  supernatural  who  provides  the 
wherewithal  for  a  marriage  between  an  impover- 
ished artist,  who  is  painting  Heliogabolus's  feast 
of  roses,  and  his  sweet  young  thing.  Quite  a 
departure  this  from  the  usual  Saltus  manner; 
nevertheless  there  are  two  deaths,  one  by  shock, 
the  other  in  a  railway  accident.  The  plot  de- 

iP.  F.  Collier;  1892;  "Written  especially  for  'Once  a 
Week  Library/" 

[68] 


E  dga  r    S  al  tu  s 


pends  on  as  many  impossible  entrances  and  exits 
as  a  Palais  Royal  farce  and  the  reader  is  asked 
to  believe  in  many  coincidences.  The  book  is  dedi- 
cated to  Lorillard  Ronalds  who,  the  author  ex- 
plains in  a  few  French  phrases,  asked  him  to  write 
something  "  de  tres  pure  et  de  ires  chaste,  pour  une 
jeunesse,  sans  doute"  He  adds  that  the  story  is 
a  rewriting  of  a  tale  which  had  appeared  twenty 
years  earlier. 

"  Imperial  Purple "  1  marks  the  high-tide  of 
Saltus's  peculiar  genius.  The  emperors  of  im- 
perial decadent  Rome  are  led  by  the  chains  of  art 
behind  the  chariot  wheels  of  the  poet:  Julius 
Caesar,  whom  Cato  called  "  that  woman,"  Augus- 
tus, Tiberius,  Caligula,  the  wicked  Agrippina,  for 
whom  Agnes  Repplier  named  her  cat,  Claudius, 
Nero,  Hadrian,  Vespasian,  down  to  the  incred- 
ible Heliogabolus.  Saltus,  who  has  given  us  many 
vivid  details  concerning  the  lives  of  his  predeces- 
sors, seemingly  falters  at  this  dread  name,  but  only 
seemingly.  More  can  be  found  about  this  ex- 
traordinary and  perverse  emperor  in  Lombard's 
"  L'Agonie  "  and  in  Franz  Blei's  "  The  Powder 
Puff,"  but,  although  Saltus  is  brief,  he  evokes  an 
atmosphere  and  a  picture  in  a  few  short  para- 

i  Merrill,  Higgins  and  Co;.  1893.     Reprinted  by  Mitchell 
Kennerley;  1906. 

[69] 


Edgar    Saltus 


graphs.  The  sheer  lyric  quality  of  this  book  has 
remained  unsurpassed  by  this  author.  Indeed  it  is 
rare  in  all  literature.  Page  after  page  that  Wal- 
ter Pater,  Oscar  Wilde,  or  J.  K.  Huysmans  might 
have  been  glad  to  sign  might  be  set  before  you. 
The  man  writes  with  invention,  with  sap,  with 
urge.  Our  eyes  are  not  clogged  with  foot-notes 
and  references.  It  is  plain  that  our  author  has 
delved  in  the  "  Scriptores  Historiae  Augusts," 
that  he  has  read  Lampridius,  Suetonius,  and  the 
others,  but  he  does  not  strive  to  make  us  aware  of 
it.  The  historical  form  has  at  last  found  a  poet 
to  render  it  supportable.  Blood  runs  across  the 
pages ;  gore  and  booty  are  the  principal  themes ; 
and  yet  Beauty  struts  supreme  through  the  hor- 
ror. The  author's  sympathy  is  his  password,  n 
sympathy  which  he  occasionally  exposes,  for  he 
is  not  above  pinning  his  heart  to  his  sleeve,  as,  for 
example,  when  he  says,  "  In  spite  of  Augustus's 
boast,  the  city  was  not  by  any  means  of  marble. 
It  was  filled  with  crooked  little  streets,  with  the 
atrocities  of  the  Tarquins,  with  houses  unsightly 
and  perilous,  with  the  moss  and  dust  of  ages;  it 
compared  with  Alexandria  as  London  compares 
with  Paris ;  it  had  a  splendour  of  its  own,  but  a 
splendour  that  could  be  heightened."  Here  is  a 
picture  of  squalid  Rome :  "  In  the  subura,  where 
[70] 


Edgar    Saltus 


at  night  women  sat  in  high  chairs,  ogling  the 
passer  with  painted  eyes,  there  was  still  plenty  of 
brick;  tall  tenements,  soiled  linen,  the  odor  of 
Whitechapel  and  St.  Giles.  The  streets  were  noisy 
with  match-pedlars,  with  vendors  of  cake  and 
tripe  and  coke;  there  were  touts  there  too,  altars 
to  unimportant  divinities,  lying  Jews  who  dealt  in 
old  clothes,  in  obscene  pictures  and  unmentionable 
wares;  at  the  crossings  there  were  thimbleriggers, 
clowns  and  jugglers,  who  made  glass  balls  appear 
and  disappear  surprisingly;  there  were  doorways 
decorated  with  curious  invitations,  gossipy  barber 
shops,  where,  through  the  liberality  of  politicians, 
the  scum  of  a  great  city  was  shaved,  curled  and 
painted  free;  and  there  were  public  houses,  where 
vagabond  slaves  and  sexless  priests  drank  the 
mulled  wine  of  Crete,  supped  on  the  flesh  of  beasts 
slaughtered  in  the  arena,  or  watched  the  Syrian 
women  twist  to  the  click  of  castanets."  The  ac- 
count of  the  arena  under  Nero  should  not  be 
missed,  but  it  is  too  long  to  quote  here.  The 
book,  which  we  give  three  stars,  is  dedicated  to 
Edwin  Albert  Schroeder.  Fortunately,  of  all  Sal- 
tus's  works,  it  is  the  most  readily  procurable. 

"  Imperial  Purple  "  has  had  a  curious  history. 
Belford,  Clarke  and  Co.,  who  hid  their  identity 
behind   the   "  Morrill,   Higgins "    imprint,    failed 
[71] 


Edgar    Saltus 


shortly  after  they  had  issued  the  book.  "  Pres- 
ently," Mr.  Saltus  writes  me,  "  a  Chicago  biblio- 
filou  brought  it  out  as  the  work  of  some  one  else 
and  called  it  'The  Sins  of  Nero.'"  Meanwhile 
Greening  published  it  in  London  and  finally 
Mitchell  Krnncrley  reprinted  it  in  New  York. 
In  1911  Macrnill.in  in  London  brought  out  "The 
Amazing  Emperor  Heliogabolus "  by  the  Rev- 
erend John  Stuart  Hay  of  Oxford.  In  the  pref- 
ace to  this  book  I  found  the  following :  **  I  have 
also  the  permission  of  Mr.  £.  £.  Saltus  of  Har- 
vard University  (fie)  to  quote  his  vivid  and  beau- 
tiful studies  on  the  Roman  Empire  and  her  cus- 
toms. I  am  also  deeply  indebted  to  Mr.  Walter 
Pater,  Mr.  J.  A.  Symonds,  and  Mr.  Saltus  for 
many  a  tournure  de  phrase  and  picturesque  render- 
ing of  Tacitus,  Suctonious,  Lampridius,  and  the 
rest."  The  Reverend  Doctor  certainly  helped 
himself  to  "  Imperial  Purple."  Words,  sentences, 
nay  whole  paragraphs  appear  without  the  for- 
mality of  quotation  marks,  without  any  indication, 
indeed,  save  these  lines  in  the  preface,  that  they 
are  not  part  of  the  Doctor's  own  imagination, 
unless  one  compares  them  with  the  style  in  which 
the  rest  of  the  book  is  written.  "  In  one  in- 
stance," Mr.  Saltus  writes  me,  "  he  gave  a  para- 
graph of  mine  as  his  own.  Later  on  he  added, 
[72] 


Edgar    Saltus 


'  as  we  have  already  said  '  and  repeated  the  para- 
graph.    The  plural  struck  me  as  singular." 

"  Madam  Sapphira  "  1  is  a  vivid  study  in  un- 
chastened  womanhood.  We  see  but  little  of  the 
lady  in  the  251  pages  of  this  "  Fifth  Avenue 
Story  " ;  her  character  is  exposed  to  us  through 
the  experiences  of  her  poor  fool  husband,  who 
colloquially  would  be  called  a  simp,  by  denizens  of 
the  Low  World  a  boob.  He  redeems  himself  to 
some  extent  by  sending  Madam  Sapphira  a  belated 
bouquet  of  cyanide  of  potassium.  On  the  whole, 
though  characters  and  phrases  in  his  work  might 
be  brought  forward  to  prove  the  contrary,  Mr. 
Saltus  obviously  has  a  low  opinion  of  women  and 
thinks  that  men  do  better  without  them.  The 
greater  part  of  the  time  he  appears  to  agree  with 
Posthumus : 

"  Could  I  find  out 

The  woman's  part  ih  me!     For  there's  no  motion 
That  tends  to  vice  in  man  but  I  affirm 
It  is  the  woman's  part ;  be  it  lying,  note  it 
The  woman's ;  flattering,  hers ;  deceiving,  hers ; 
Lust  and  rank  thoughts,  hers,  hers  ;  revenges,  hers  ; 
Ambitions,  covetings,  changes  of  prides,  disdain, 
Nice  longings,  slanders,  mutability, 
IF.  Tennyson  Neely;  1893. 


Edgar    Saltus 


All  faults  that  may  be  named,  nay  that  hell  knows, 

Why,  hers,  in  part  or  all;  but  rather,  all ; 

For  even  to  vice 

They  are  not  constant,  but  are  changing  still 

One  vice  of  a  minute  old  for  one 

Not  half  so  old  as  that.     Til  write  against  them, 

Detest  them,  curse  them. —  Yet  'tis  greater  skill 

In  a  true  hate,  to  pray  they  have  their  will : 

The  very  devils  cannot  plague  them  better." 

"  Enthralled,  a  story  of  international  life  set- 
ting forth  the  curious  circumstances  concerning 
Lord  Cloden  and  Oswald  Quain  " :  l  a  mad  opiis 
this,  an  insane  phantasmagoria  of  crime,  avarice, 
and  murder.  For  the  second  time  in  this  author's 
novels  incest  plays  a  role.  This  time  it  is  real. 
Quain  is  indeed  the  half-brother  of  the  lady  who 
desires  to  marry  him.  He  is  as  vile  and  virulent 
u  villain  as  any  who  stalks  through  the  pages  of 
Ann  Ker,  Eliza  Bromley,  or  Mrs.  Radcliffe.  A 
Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde  motive  is  sounded.  An 
ugly  man  comes  back  from  London  a  handsome 
fellow  after  visits  to  a  certain  doctor  who  re- 
arranges the  lines  of  his  .face.  The  transfor- 
mation is  effected  every  day  now  (some  of  our 
prominent  actresses  are  said  to  have  benefited  by 

i  Tudor  Press;  1894. 

[74] 


Edgar    Saltu  s 


this  operation),  but  in  1894*  the  mechanism  of 
the  trick  must  have  been  appallingly  creaky. 
This  story,  indeed,  borders  on  the  burlesque  and 
has  almost  as  much  claim  to  the  title  as  "  The 
Green  Carnation."  Was  the  author  laughing  at 
the  Eighteen  Nineties?  The  period  is  subtly 
evoked  in  one  detail,  constantly  reiterated  in  Sal- 
tus's  early  books :  ladies  and  gentlemen  when  they 
leave  a  room  "  push  aside  the  portieres."  Some- 
times the  "  rings  jingle."  He  has  in  most  in- 
stances mercifully  spared  us  further  descriptions 
of  the  interiors  of  New  York  houses  at  this 
epoch.  ...  At  a  dinner  party  one  of  the  guests 
refers  to  Howells  as  the  "  foremost  novelist  who  is 
never  read."  The  book  is  dedicated  to  "  Cheru- 
bina,  dulcissime  rerwm"  Saltus  returned  to  the 
central  theme  of  "  Enthralled  "  in  a  story  called 
"  The  Impostor,"  printed  in  "  Ainslee's  "  for  May, 
1917. 

"  When  Dreams  Come  True  "  l  again  brings  us 
in  touch  with  Tancred  Ennever,  the  stupid  hero 
of  "  The  Transient  Guest."  In  the  meantime  he 
has  become  an  almost  intolerable  prig.  It  is 
probable  that  Saltus  meant  more  by  this  fable 
than  he  has  let  appear.  The  roar  of  the  waves 
on  the  coast  of  Lesbos  is  distinctly  audible  for  a 

iThe  Transatlantic  Publishing  Co.;  1895. 

[75] 


Edgar    Sal  tu  s 


time  and  the  denoument  seems  to  belong  to  quite 
another  story.  .  .  .  Ennever  has  turned  author. 
We  are  informed  that  he  has  completed  studies  on 
Huysmans  and  Leconte  de  Lisle;  he  is  also  en- 
gaged on  a  "  Historia  Amoris."  There  is  an  in- 
teresting passage  relating  to  the  names  of  great 
writers.  Alphabet  Jones  assures  us  that  they  are 
always  "  in  two  syllables  with  the  accent  on  the 
first.  Oyez:  Homer,  Sappho,  Horace,  Dante, 
Petrarch,  Ronsard,  Shakespeare,  Hugo,  Swin- 
burne .  .  .  Balzac,  Flaubert,  Huysmans,  Mich- 
elet,  Renan."  The  reader  is  permitted  to 
add  ...  "Saltus"! 

"  Purple  and  Fine  Women  "  l  is  a  misnamed 
book.  It  should  be  called  "  Philosophic  Fables." 
The  first  two  stories  are  French  in  form.  Paul 
Bourget  himself  is  the  hero  of  one  of  them!  In 
"  The  Princess  of  the  Sun  "  we  are  offered  a  new 
and  fantastic  version  of  the  Coppelia  story. 
"The  Dear  Departed"  finds  Saltus  in  a  mur- 
derous amorous  mood  again.  In  "  The  Princess 
of  the  Golden  Isles"  a  new  poison  is  introduced, 
muscarine.  Alchemy  furnishes  the  theme  for  one 
tale;  the  protagonist  seeks  an  alcahest,  a  human 
victim  for  his  crucible.  We  are  left  in  doubt  as 
to  whether  he  chooses  his  wife,  who  wears  a  dia- 
*  Ainslee;  1903. 

[76] 


Edgar    Saltu  s 


mond  set  in  one  of  her  teeth,  or  a  gorilla.  There 
are  dramas  of  dual  personality  and  of  death. 
Metaphysics  and  spiritualism  rise  dimly  out  of  the 
charm  of  this  book.  There  is  a  duchess  who  mews 
like  a  cat  and  somewhere  we  are  assured  that 
Perchc  non  posso  odiartc  from  La  Sormambula  is 
the  most  beautiful  aria  in  the  Italian  repertory. 
Here  is  a  true  and  soul-revealing  epigram : 
"  The  best  way  to  master  a  subject  of  which  you 
are  ignorant  is  to  write  it  up."  Certainly  not 
Saltus  at  his  best,  this  opus,  but  far  from  his 
worst. 

"  The  Perfume  of  Eros  "  l  is  frenzied  fiction 
again;  amnesia,  drunkenness,  white  slavery,  sex, 
are  its  mingled  themes.  There  is  a  pretty  picture, 
recognizable  in  any  smart  community,  of  a  witty 
woman  of  fashion,  and  a  full-length  portrait  of  a 
bounder.  "  The  Yellow  Fay,"  Saltus's  cliche  for 
the  Demon  Rum,  was  the  original  title  of  this 
"  Fifth  Avenue  Incident."  Romance  and  Realism 
consort  lovingly  together  in  its  pages.  There  is 
an  unforgetable  passage  descriptive  of  a  young 
man  ridding  himself  of  his  mistress.  He  inter- 
rupts his  flow  of  explanation  to  hand  her  a  card 
case,  which  she  promptly  throws  out  of  the  win- 
dow. 

i  A.  Wessels  Co.;  1905. 

[77] 


Edgar    Saltus 


"  '  That  is  an  agreeable  way  of  getting  rid  of 
twt-lve  thousand  dollars,'  he  remarked. 

"  Yet,  however  lightly  he  affected  to  speak,  the 
action  annoyed  him.  Like  all  men  of  large  means 
he  was  close.  It  seemed  to  him  beastly  to  lose 
such  a  sum.  He  got  up,  went  to  tin-  window  and 
looked  down.  He  could  not  see  the  case  and  he 
much  wanted  to  go  and  look  for  it.  But  that  for 
the  moment  Marie  prevented." 

"  The  Pomps  of  Satan  "  l  is  replete  with  grace 
and  in  u  iousncss,  and  full  of  charm,  a  quality  more 
valuable  to  its  possessor  than  juvenility,  our  au- 
thor tells  us  in  a  chapter  concerning  the  lost  elixir 
of  youth.  Neither  form  nor  matter  assume  pon- 
derous shape  in  this  volume,  \\liidi  in  the  quality 
of  its  contents  reminds  one  faintly  of  Franz  Blei's 
lady's  breviary,  "  The  Powder  Puff,"  but  Saltus's 
book  is  the  more  ingratiating  of  the  two.  Satan's 
pomps  arc  varied;  the  author  exposes  his  whims, 
his  ideas,  images  the  past,  forecasts  the  future,  de- 
plores the  present.  There  is  a  chapter  on  cook- 
ing and  we  learn  that  Saltus  does  not  care  for 
food  prepared  in  the  German  style  .  .  .  nor  yet 
in  the  American.  He  forbids  us  champagne: 
"  Champagne  is  not  a  wine.  It  is  a  beverage, 
lighter  indeed  than  brandy  and  soda,  but,  like 

i  Mitchell  Kcnnerley;  1906. 

[78] 


Edgar    Saltus 


cologne,  fit  only  for  demi-reps."  But  he  seems 
untrue  to  himself  in  an  essay  condemning  the  use 
of  perfumes.  His  own  books  are  heavily  scented. 
With  the  rare  prescience  and  clairvoyance  of  an 
artist  he  includes  the  German  Kaiser  in  a  chapter 
on  hyenas  (in  1906!);  therein  stalk  the  blood- 
stained shadows  of  Caligula,  Caracalla,  Atilla, 
Tamerlane,  Cesare  Borgia,  Philip  II,  and  Ivan 
the  Terrible.  The  paragraph  is  worth  quoting: 
"  Power  consists  in  having  a  million  bayonets  be- 
hind you.  Its  diffusion  is  not  general.  But  there 
are  people  who  possess  it.  For  one,  the  German 
Kaiser.  Not  long  since  somebody  or  other  diag- 
nosed in  him  the  habitual  criminal.  We  doubt 
that  he  is  that.  But  we  suspect  that,  were  it  not 
for  the  press,  he  would  show  more  of  primitive  man 
than  he  has  thus  far  thought  judicious."  Has 
Mme.  de  Thebes  done  better?  Saltus  also  fore- 
saw Gertrude  Stein.  Peering  into  the  future  he 
wrote :  "  When  that  day  comes  the  models  of  lit- 
erary excellence  will  not  be  the  long  and  windy 
sentences  of  accredited  bores,  but  ample  brevities, 
such  as  the  '  N  '  on  Napoleon's  tomb,  in  which,  in 
less  than  a  syllable,  an  epoch,  and  the  glory  of  it, 
is  resumed."  Saltus  forsakes  his  previous  choice 
from  Bellini  and  installs  Tu  che  a  Dio  as  his  fa- 
vourite Italian  opera  air.  Here  is  another  flash 
[79] 


Edgar    Sal  tu  s 


of  self-revealim-nt :  "  H  v/.ancc  is  rumoured  to 
have  been  the  sewer  of  every  sin,  yet  such  was  its 
beauty  that  it  is  the  canker  of  our  heart  we  could 
not  have  lived  there."  Always  this  turning  to  the 
far  past,  this  delving  in  rosetta  stones  and  palimp- 
sests, this  preoccupation  with  the  sights  and  sins 
of  the  ancient  gods  and  kings.  A  chapter  on 
poisons,  another  on  Gille  de  Retz,  which  probably 
owes  something  to  "La  Bas,"  betray  this  pn-fVr- 
ence.  He  playfully  suggests  that  the  Academy  of 
Arts  and  Letters  be  filled  up  with  young  nobodies : 
"  They  have,  indeed,  done  nothing  yet.  But 
thcivin  is  their  charm.  An  academy  composed  of 
young  people  who  have  done  nothing  yet  would  be 
more  alluring  than  one  made  up  of  fossils  who  are 
unable  to  do  anything  more."  Herein  are  con- 
tained enough  aphorisms  and  epigrams  to  make 
up  a  new  book  of  Solomonic  wisdom.  Hardly  as 
evenly  inspired  as  "  Imperial  Purple,"  "  The 
Pomps  of  Satan "  is  more  dashing  and  more 
varied.  It  is  also  more  tired. 

"  Vanity  Square  "  l  in  Stella  Sixmuth  boasts 
such  a  "  vampire  "  as  even  Theda  Bara  is  seldom 
called  upon  to  portray.  Not  until  the  final  chap- 
ters of  this  mystery  story  do  we  discover  that 
this  lady  has  been  poisoning  a  rich  man's  wife, 

i  J.  B.  Lippincott  Co.;  1906. 

[80] 


Edgar    Saltus 


with  an  eye  on  the  rich  man's  heart  and  hand. 
Orsere  is  this  slow  and  subtle  poison  which  leaves 
no  subsequent  trace.  She  is  thwarted  but  in  a 
subsequent  attempt  she  is  successful.  Robert 
Hichens  has  used  this  theme  in  "  Bella  Donna." 
There  is  a  suicide  by  pistol.  An  exciting  story 
but  little  else,  this  book  contains  fewer  references 
to  the  gods  and  the  caesars  than  is  usual  with 
Saltus.  To  compensate  there  are  long  discussions 
about  phobias,  dual  personalities  (a  girl  with  six 
is  described)  and  theories  about  future  existence. 
Vanity  Square,  we  are  told,  is  bounded  by  Central 
Park,  Madison  Avenue,  Seventy-second  Street  and 
the  Plaza. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  Tancred  Ennever 
was  at  work  on  "  Historia  Amoris  "  l  in  1895, 
which  would  seem  to  indicate  that  Saltus  had  begun 
to  collect  material  for  it  himself  at  that  time. 
The  title  is  a  literal  description  of  the  contents  of 
the  book :  Jt  is  a  history  of  love.  Suck  a  work 
might  have  been  made  purely  anecdotal  or  scien- 
tific, but  Saltus's  purpose  has  been  at  once  more 
serious  and  more  graceful,  to  show  how  the  love 
currents  flowed  through  the  centuries,  to  show  what 
effect  period  life  had  on  love  and  what  effect  love 
had  on  period  life.  Beginning  with  Babylon  and 
i  Mitchell  Kennerley;  1907. 

[81] 


Edgar    Saltus 


passing  on  through  the  "  Song  of  Songs  "  we  meet 
Helen  of  Troy,  Scheherazade  (though  but  briefly), 
Sappho  (to  whom  an  entire  chapter  is  devoted), 
Cleopatra  (whom  Heine  called  "  cette  reme  entre- 
tenue"),  Mary  Magdalen,  Heloi'se.  .  .  .  The 
Courts  of  Love  are  described  and  deductions  are 
drawn  as  to  the  effect  of  the  Renaissance  on  the 
Gay  Science.  "  Historia  Amoris  "  is  concluded  by 
a  Schopenhauerian  essay  on  "  The  Law  of  Attrac- 
tion." Cicisbeism  is  not  treated  in  extenso,  as  it 
should  be,  and  I  also  missed  the  fragrant  name 
of  Sophie  Arnould.  Readers  of  "  Love  and  Lore," 
"  The  Pomps  of  Satan,"  "  Imperial  Purple,"  and 
"  The  Lords  of  the  Ghostland  "  will  find  much  of 
their  material  adjusted  to  the  purposes  of  this 
History  of  Love,  which,  nevertheless,  no  one  inter- 
ested in  Saltus  can  afford  to  miss. 

In  "  The  Lords  of  the  Ghostland,  a  history  of 
the  ideal,"  l  Saltus  returns  to  the  theme  of  "  The 
Anatomy  of  Negation."  The  newer  work  is  both 
more  cynical  and  more  charming.  It  is,  of  course, 
a  history  and  a  comparison  of  religions.  With 
Reinach  Saltus  believes  that  Christianity  owes 
much  to  its  ancestors.  Brahma,  Ormuzd,  Amon- 
RA,  Bel-Marduk,  Jehovah,  Zeus,  Jupiter,  and 
many  lesser  deities  parade  before  us  in  defile, 
i  Mitchell  Kenncrley;  1907. 

[82] 


Edgar    Saltus 


Prejudice,  intolerance,  tolerance  even  are  lacking 
from  this  book,  as  they  were  from  "  Imperial 
Purple."  "The  Lords  of  the  Ghostland "  is 
neither  reverent  nor  irreverent,  it  is  unreverent. 
Mr.  Saltus  finds  joy  in  writing  about  the  gods,  the 
joy  of  a  poet,  and  if  his  chief est  pleasure  is  to 
extol  the  gods  of  Greece  that  is  only  what  might 
be  expected  of  this  truly  pagan  spirit.  Students 
of  comparative  theology  can  learn  much  from 
these  pages,  but  they  will  learn  it  unwittingly,  for 
the  poet  supersedes  the  teacher.  Saltus  is  never 
professorial.  The  scientific  spirit  is  never  to  the 
fore;  no  marshalling  of  dull  facts  for  their  own 
sakes.  Nevertheless  I  suspect  that  the  book  con- 
tains more  absorbing  information  than  any  similar 
volume  on  the  subject.  With  a  fascinating  and 
guileful  style  this  divine  devil  of  an  author  leads  us 
on  to  the  spot  where  he  can  point  out  to  us  that 
the  only  original  feature  of  Christianity  is  the 
crucifixion,  and  even  that  is  foreshadowed  in 
Hindoo  legend,  in  which  Krishna  dies,  nailed  by 
arrows  to  a  tree.  This  book  should  be  required 
reading  for  the  first  class  in  isogogics. 

Most  of  the  scenes  of  "  Daughters  of  the 
Rich  "  l  are  laid  in  Paris.  The  plot  hinges  on  mis- 
taken identity  and  the  whole  is  a  very  ingenious 

i  Mitchell  Kennerley;  1909. 

[83] 


Edgar    Saltus 


detective  story.  The  book  begins  rather  than 
ends  with  a  murder,  but  that  is  because  the  tale 
is  told  backward.  Through  lies,  deceit,  and 
treachery  the  woman  in  the  case,  one  Sallie  Mala- 
koff,  betrays  the  hero  into  marriage  with  her. 
When  he  discovers  her  perfidy  he  cheerfully  cuts 
her  throat  from  ear  to  ear  and  goes  to  join  the 
lady  from  whom  he  has  been  estranged.  She  re- 
ceives him  with  open  arms  and  suggests  wedding 
bells.  No  woman,  she  asserts,  could  resist  a  man 
who  has  killed  another  woman  for  her  sake.  This 
is  decidedly  a  Roman  point  of  view !  Some  of  the 
action  takes  place  in  a  house  on  the  Avenue  Mala- 
koff,  which  must  have  been  near  the  hotel  of  the 
Princesse  de  Sagan  and  the  apartment  occupied 
by  Miss  Mary  Garden.  ...  A  fat  manufacturer's 
wife  confronts  the  proposal  of  a  mercenary  duke 
with  an  epic  rejoinder:  "Pay  a  man  a  million 
dollars  to  sleep  with  my  daughter !  Never !  "  .  .  . 
Again  Saltus  demonstrates  how  completely  he  is 
master  of  the  story-telling  gift,  how  surely  he  pos- 
sesses the  power  to  compel  breathless  attention. 

"  The  Monster  "  1  is  fiction,  incredible,  insane 
fiction.     The  monster  is   incest,  in  this   instance 
inceste  manque  because  it  doesn't  come  off.     On 
the  eve  of  a  runaway  marriage  Leilah  Ogsten  is 
i  Pulitzer  Publishing  Co.;  1912. 
[84] 


Edgar    Saltus 


informed  by  her  father  that  her  intended  husband 
is  her  own  brother  (he  inculpates  her  mother  in  the 
scandal).  Leilah  disappears  and  to  put  barriers 
between  her  and  the  man  she  loves  becomes  the 
bride  of  another.  Verplank  pursues.  There  are 
two  fabulous  duels  and  a  scene  in  which  our  hero 
is  mangled  by  dogs.  The  stage  (for  we  are  always 
in  some  extravagant  theatre)  is  frequently  set  in 
Paris  and  the  familiar  scenes  of  the  capital  are  in 
turn  exposed  to  our  view.  It  is  all  mad,  full  of 
purple  patches  and  crimson  splotches  and  yet,  once 
opened,  it  is  impossible  to  lay  the  book  down 
until  it  is  completed.  From  this  novel  Mr.  Saltus 
fashioned  his  only  play,  The  Gates  of  Life,  which 
he  sent  to  Charles  Frohman  and  which  Mr.  Froh- 
man  returned.  The  piece  has  neither  been  pro- 
duced nor  published. 

Last  year  (1917)  the  Brothers  of  the  Book  in 
Chicago  published  privately  an  extremely  limited 
edition  (474  copies)  of  a  book  by  Edgar  Saltus 
entitled,  "  Oscar  Wilde :  An  Idler's  Impression," 
which  contains  only  twenty-six  pages,  but  those 
twenty-six  pages  are  very  beautiful.  They  evoke 
a  spirit  from  the  dead.  Indeed,  I  doubt  if  even 
Saltus  has  done  better  than  his  description  of  a 
strange  occurrence  in  a  Regent  Street  Restaurant 
on  a  certain  night  when  he  was  supping  with 
[85] 


Edgar    Saltus 


Wilde  and  Wilde  was  reading  Salome  to  him: 
"  apropos  of  nothing,  or  rather  with  what  to  me  at 
the  time  was  curious  irrelevance,  Oscar,  while  toss- 
ing off  glass  after  glass  of  liquor,  spoke  of  Phcme, 
a  goddess  rare  even  in  mythology,  who  after  ap- 
pearing twice  in  Homer,  flashed  through  a  verse  of 
Hesiod  and  vanished  behind  a  page  of  Herodotus. 
In  telling  of  her,  suddenly  his  eyes  lifted,  his 
mouth  contracted,  a  spasm  of  pain  —  or  was  it 
dread?  —  had  gripped  him.  A  moment  only. 
His  face  relaxed.  It  had  gone. 

"  I  have  since  wondered,  could  he  have  evoked 
the  goddess  then?  For  Phem£  typified  what  mod- 
ern occultism  terms  the  impact  —  the  premonition 
that  surges  and  warns.  It  was  Wilde's  fate  to  die 
three  times  —  to  die  in  the  dock,  to  die  in  prison, 
to  die  all  along  the  boulevards  of  Paris.  Often 
since  I  have  wondered  could  the  goddess  have  been 
lifting,  however  slightly,  some  fringe  of  the  crim- 
son curtain,  behind  which,  in  all  its  horror,  his 
destiny  crouched.  If  so,  he  braved  it. 

"  I  had  looked  away.  I  looked  again.  Before 
me  was  a  fat  pauper,  florid  and  over-dressed,  who, 
in  the  voice  of  an  immortal,  was  reading  the  fan- 
tasies of  the  damned.  In  his  hand  was  a  manu- 
script, and  we  were  supping  on  Salome." 

Edgar  Saltus  began  with  Balzac  in  1884  and 
[86] 


Edgar    Saltus 


he  has  reached  Oscar  Wilde  in  1917.  His  other 
literary  essays,  on  Gautier  and  Merimee  in  "  Tales 
Before  Supper,"  on  Barbey  d'Aurevilly  in  "  The 
Story  Without  a  Name,"  and  on  Victor  Hugo  in 
"  The  Forum  "  (June,  1912,)  all  display  the  finest 
qualities  of  his  genius.  Pervaded  with  his  rare 
charm  they  are  clairvoyant  and  illuminating,  more 
than  that  arresting.  They  should  be  brought  to- 
gether in  one  volume,  especially  as  they  are  at 
present  absolutely  inaccessible,  terrifyingly  so, 
every  one  of  them.  And  if  they  are  to  be  thus 
collected  may  we  not  hope  for  one  or  two  new  es- 
says with,  say,  for  subjects,  Flaubert  and  Huys- 
mans  ? 

It  is,  you  may  perceive,  as  an  essayist,  a  his- 
torian, an  amateur  philosopher  that  Saltus  ex- 
cels, but  his  fiction  should  not  be  under-rated  on 
that  account.  His  novels  indeed  are  half  essays, 
just  as  his  essays  are  half  novels.  Even  the  worst 
of  them  contains  charming  pages,  delightful  and 
unexpected  interruptions.  His  series  of  fables 
suggests  a  vast  Comedie  Inhumaine  but  this  state- 
ment must  not  be  regarded  as  dispraise:  it  is 
merely  description.  You  will  find  something  of 
the  same  quality  in  the  work  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe, 
but  Saltus  has  more  grace  and  charm  than  Poe, 
if  less  intensity.  After  one  dip  into  realism 


Edgar    Saltus 


("  Mr.  Incoul's  Misadventure  ")  Saltus  became  an 
incorrigible  romantic.  All  his  characters  are  the 
inventions  of  an  errant  fancy;  scarcely  one  of 
them  suggests  a  human  being,  but  they  are  none 
the  less  creations  of  art.  This,  perhaps,  was  a 
daring  procedure  in  an  era  devoted  to  the  exploi 
tation  in  fiction  of  the  facts  of  hearth  and  home. 
.  .  .  After  all,  however,  his  way  may  be  the  better 
way.  Personally  I  may  say  that  my  passion  for 
realism  is  on  the  wane. 

In  these  strange  tales  we  pass  through  the 
familiar  haunts  of  metropolitan  life,  but  the  crea- 
tures are  amazingly  unfamiliar.  They  have  horns 
and  hoofs,  halos  and  wings,  or  fins  and  tails.  An 
esoteric  band  of  fabulous  monsters  these:  harpies 
and  vampires  take  tea  at  Sherry's;  succubi  and 
incubbi  are  observed  buying  opal  rings  at  Tif- 
fany's; fairies,  angels,  dwarfs,  and  elves,  bearing 
branches  of  asphodel,  trip  lightly  down  Waverly 
Place ;  peris,  amshaspahands,  a»sir,  izeds,  and  gob- 
lins sleep  at  the  Brevoort;  seraphim  and  cheru- 
bim decorate  drawing  rooms  on  Irving  Place;  grif- 
fons, chimeras,  and  sphynxes  take  courses  in  phi- 
losophy at  Harvard;  willis  and  sylphs  sing  airs 
from  Lucia  di  Lammermoor  and  Le  Nozze  di 
Figaro;  naiads  and  mermaids  embark  on  the 
Cunard  Line;  centaurs  and  amazons  drive  in  the 
[88] 


Edgar    Saltus 


Florentine  Cascine;  kobolds,  gnomes,  and  trolls 
stab,  shoot,  and  poison  one  another;  and  a  satyr 
meets  the  martichoras  in  Gramercy  Park.  No 
such  pictures  of  monstrous,  diverting,  sensuous 
existence  can  be  found  elsewhere  save  in  the  paint- 
ings of  Arnold  Bocklin,  Franz  von  Stuck,  and 
above  all  those  of  Gustave  Moreau.  If  he  had 
done  nothing  else  Edgar  Saltus  should  be  famous 
for  having  given  New  York  a  mythology  of  its 
own! 

January  12, 1918. 


[89] 


The  New  Art  of  the  Singer 

It't  the  law  of  life  that  nothing  new  can  come  into 
the  world  without  pain/' 

Karen  Borneman. 


The  New  Art  of  the  Singer 


THE  art  of  vocalization  is  retarding  the 
progress  of  the  modern  music  drama. 
That  is  the  simple  fact  although,  doubtless, 
you  are  as  accustomed  as  I  am  to  hearing  it  ex- 
pressed a  rebours.  How  many  times  have  we  read 
that  the  art  of  singing  is  in  its  decadence,  that 
soon  there  would  not  be  one  artist  left  fitted  to 
deliver  vocal  music  in  public.  The  Earl  of  Mount 
Edgcumbe  wrote  something  of  the  sort  in  1825 
for  he  found  the  great  Catalani  but  a  sorry  trav- 
esty of  his  early  favourites,  Pacchierotti  and 
Banti.  I  protest  against  this  misconception. 
Any  one  who  asserts  that  there  are  laws  which 
govern  singing,  physical,  scientific  laws,  must  pay 
court  to  other  ears  than  mine.  I  have  heard  this 
same  man  for  twenty  years  shouting  in  the  market 
place  that  a  piece  without  action  was  not  a  play 
(usually  the  drama  he  referred  to  had  more  real 
action  than  that  which  decorates  the  progress  of 
NeUie,  the  Beautiful  Cloak  Model),  that  a  com- 
position without  melody  (meaning  something  by 
Richard  Wagner,  Robert  Franz,  or  even  Edvard 
Grieg)  was  not  music,  that  verse  without  rhyme 
was  not  poetry.  This  same  type  of  brilliant  mind 
will  go  on  to  aver  (forgetting  the  Scot)  that  men 
[93] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

who  wear  skirts  are  not  men,  (forgetting  the  Span- 
iards) that  women  who  smoke  cigars  are  not 
women,  and  to  settle  numberless  other  matters  in 
so  silly  a  manner  that  a  ten  year  old,  half-witted 
school  boy,  after  three  minutes  light  thinking, 
could  be  depended  upon  to  do  better. 

The  rules  for  the  art  of  singing,  laid  down  in 
the  Seventeenth  and  Eighteenth  Centuries,  have 
become  obsolete.  How  could  it  be  otherwise? 
They  were  contrived  to  fit  a  certain  style  of  com- 
position. We  have  but  the  briefest  knowledge,  in- 
deed, of  how  people  sang  before  1700,  although 
records  exist  praising  the  performances  of  Archilei 
and  others.  If  a  different  standard  for  the  criti- 
cism of  vocalization  existed  before  1600  there  is 
no  reason  why  there  should  not  after  1917.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  maugre  much  authoritative  opin- 
ion to  the  contrary,  a  different  standard  does  ex- 
ist. In  certain  respects  the  new  standard  is  taken 
for  granted.  We  do  not,  for  example,  expect  to 
hear  male  sopranos  at  the  opera.  The  Earl  of 
Mount  Edgcumbe  admired  this  artificial  form  of 
voice  almost  to  the  exclusion  of  all  others.  His 
favourite  singer,  indeed,  Pacchierotti,  was  a  male 
soprano.  But  other  breaks  have  been  made  with 
tradition,  breaks  which  are  not  yet  taken  for 
granted.  When  you  find  that  all  but  one  or  two 
[94] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

of  the  singers  in  every  opera  house  in  the  world 
are  ignoring  the  rules  in  some  respect  or  other  you 
may  be  certain,  in  spite  of  the  protests  of  the 
professors,  that  the  rules  are  dead.  Their  excuse 
has  disappeared  and  they  remain  only  as  silly 
commandments  made  to  fit  an  old  religion.  A 
singer  in  Handel's  day  was  accustomed  to  stand 
in  one  spot  on  the  stage  and  sing;  nothing  else 
was  required  of  him.  He  was  not  asked  to  walk 
about  or  to  act;  even  expression  in  his  singing 
was  limited  to  pathos.  The  singers  of  this  period, 
Nicolini,  Senesino,  Cuzzoni,  Faustina,  Caffarelli, 
Farinelli,  Carestini,  Gizziello,  and  Pacchierotti, 
devoted  their  study  years  to  preparing  their  voices 
for  the  display  of  a  certain  definite  kind  of  florid 
music.  They  had  nothing  else  to  learn.  As  a 
consequence  they  were  expected  to  be  particularly 
efficient.  Porpora,  Caffarelli's  teacher,  is  said  to 
have  spent  six  years  on  his  pupil  before  he  sent 
him  forth  to  be  "  the  greatest  singer  in  the  world." 
Contemporary  critics  appear  to  have  been  highly 
pleased  with  the  result  but  there  is  some  excuse 
for  H.  T.  Finck's  impatience,  expressed  in  "  Songs 
and  Song  Writers":  "The  favourites  of  the 
eighteenth-century  Italian  audiences  were  arti- 
ficial male  sopranos,  like  Farinelli,  who  was  fran- 
tically applauded  for  such  circus  tricks  as  beating 
[95] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

a  trumpeter  in  holding  on  to  a  note,  or  racing 
with  an  orchestra  and  getting  ahead  of  it;  or 
Caffarelli,  who  entertained  his  audiences  by  sing- 
ing, in  one  breath,  a  chromatic  chain  of  trills  up 
and  down  two  octaves.  Caffarelli  was  a  pupil  of 
the  famous  vocal  teacher  Porpora,  who  wrote 
operas  consisting  chiefly  of  monotonous  succes- 
sions of  florid  arias  resembling  the  music  that  is 
now  written  for  flutes  and  violins."  All  very  well 
for  the  day,  no  doubt,  but  could  Cuzzoni  sing 
Isolde?  Could  Faustina  sing  Melisande?  And 
what  modern  parts  would  be  allotted  to  the  Julian 
Kl tinges  of  the  Eighteenth  Century? 

When  composers  began  to  set  dramatic  tc\t> 
to  music  trouble  immediately  appeared  at  the  door. 
For  example,  the  contemporaries  of  Sophie 
Arnould,  the  "  creator  "  of  Iphigenie  en  Aulide, 
are  agreed  that  she  was  greater  as  an  actress  tlum 
she  was  as  a  singer.  David  Garrick,  indeed,  pro- 
nounced her  a  finer  actress  than  Clairon.  From 
that  day  to  this  there  has  been  a  continual  tri- 
angular conflict  between  critic,  composer,  and 
singer,  which  up  to  date,  it  must  be  admitted,  has 
been  won  by  the  academic  pundits,  for,  although 
the  singer  has  struggled,  she  has  generally  bent 
under  the  blows  of  the  critical  knout,  thereby 
holding  the  lyric  drama  more  or  less  in  the  state 
[96] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

it  was  in  a  hundred  years  ago  (every  critic  and 
almost  every  composer  will  tell  you  that  any  mod- 
ern opera  can  be  sung  according  to  the  laws  of 
bel  canto  and  enough  singers  exist,  unfortunately, 
to  justify  this  assertion)  save  that  the  music  is 
not  so  well  sung,  according  to  the  old  standards, 
as  it  was  then.  No  singer  has  had  quite  the  cour- 
age to  entirely  defy  tradition,  to  refuse  to  study 
with  a  teacher,  to  embody  her  own  natural  ideas 
in  the  performance  of  music,  to  found  a  new  school 
.  .  .  but  there  have  been  many  rebells. 

The  operas  of  Mozart,  Bellini,  Donizetti,  and 
Rossini,  as  a  whole,  do  not  demand  great  histrionic 
exertion  from  their  interpreters  and  for  a  time 
singers  trained  in  the  old  Handelian  tradition  met 
every  requirement  of  these  composers  and  their 
audiences.  If  more  action  was  demanded  than 
in  Handel's  day  the  newer  music,  in  compensation, 
was  easier  to  sing.  But  even  early  in  the  Nine- 
teenth Century  we  observe  that  those  artists  who 
strove  to  be  actors  as  well  as  singers  lost  some- 
thing in  vocal  facility  (really  they  were  pushing 
on  to  the  new  technique).  I  need  only  speak  of 
Ronconi  and  Mme.  Pasta.  The  lady  was  ad- 
mittedly the  greatest  lyric  artist  of  her  day  al- 
though it  is  recorded  that  her  slips  from  true  in- 
tonation were  frequent.  When  she  could  no 
[97] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

longer  command  a  steady  tone  the  beaux  rcstes 
of  her  art  and  her  authoritative  style  caused 
Pauline  Viardot,  who  was  hearing  her  then  for 
the  first  time,  to  burst  into  tears.  Ronconi's 
voice,  according  to  Chorley,  barely  exceeded  an 
octave;  it  was  weak  and  habitually  out  of  tune. 
This  baritone  was  not  gifted  with  vocal  agility 
and  he  was  monotonous  in  his  use  of  ornament. 
Nevertheless  this  same  Chorley  admits  that  Ron- 
coni  afforded  him  more  pleasure  in  the  theatre 
than  almost  any  other  singer  he  ever  heard!  If 
this  critic  did  not  rise  to  the  occasion  here  and 
point  the  way  to  the  future  in  another  place  he 
had  a  faint  glimmering  of  the  coming  revolution: 
'*  There  might,  there  thotdd  be  yet,  a  new  Medea 
as  an  opera.  Nothing  can  be  grander,  more  an- 
tique, more  Greek,  than  Cherubini's  setting  of  the 
'  grand  fiendish  part '  (to  quote  the  words  of 
Mrs.  Siddons  on  Lady  Macbeth).  But,  as  music, 
it  becomes  simply  impossible  to  be  executed,  so 
frightful  is  the  strain  on  the  energies  of  her  who 
is  to  present  the  heroine.  Compared  with  this 
character,  Beethoven's  Leonora,  Weber's  Euryan- 
the,  are  only  so  much  child's  play."  This  is 
topsy-turvy  reasoning,  of  course,  but  at  the  same 
time  it  is  suggestive. 

The   modern    orchestra   dug   a   deeper   breach 
[98] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

between  the  two  schools.  Wagner  called  upon 
the  singer  to  express  powerful  emotion,  passionate 
feeling,  over  a  great  body  of  sound,  nay,  in  many 
instances,  against  a  great  body  of  sound.  (It  is 
significant  that  Wagner  himself  admitted  that  it 
was  a  singer  [Madame  Schroeder-Devrient]  who 
revealed  to  him  the  possibilities  of  dramatic  sing- 
ing. He  boasted  that  he  was  the  only  one  to 
learn  the  lesson.  "  She  was  the  first  artist," 
writes  H.  T.  Finck,  "  who  fully  revealed  the  fact 
that  in  a  dramatic  opera  there  may  be  situations 
where  characteristic  singing  is  of  more  importance 
than  beautiful  singing.")  It  is  small  occasion 
for  wonder  that  singers  began  to  bark.  Indeed 
they  nearly  expired  under  the  strain  of  trying 
successfully  to  mingle  Porpora  and  passion.  Ac- 
cording to  W.  F.  Apthorp,  Max  Alvary  once  said 
that,  considering  the  emotional  intensity  of  music 
and  situations,  the  constant  co-operation  of  the 
surging  orchestra,  and,  most  of  all,  the  uncon- 
querable feeling  of  the  reality  of  it  all,  it  was  a 
wonder  that  singing  actors  did  not  go  stark  mad, 
before  the  very  faces  of  the  audience,  in  parts  like 
Tristan  or  Siegfried.  .  .  .  The  critics,  however, 
were  inexorable ;  they  stood  by  their  guns.  There 
was  but  one  way  to  sing  the  new  music  and  that 
was  the  way  of  Bernacchi  and  Pistocchi.  In 
[99] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

time,  by  dint  of  persevering,  talking  night  and 
day,  writing  day  and  night,  they  convinced  the 
singer.  The  music  drama  developed  but  the  singer 
was  held  in  his  place.  Some  artists,  great  geniuses, 
of  course,  made  the  compromise  successfully.  .  .  . 
Jean  dc  Reszke,  for  example,  and  Lilli  Lehmann, 
who  said  to  H.  E.  Kn-hbiel  ("Chapters  of 
Opera  ")  :  "  It  is  easier  to  sing  all  three  Briinn- 
hildes  than  one  Norma.  You  arc  so  carried  away 
by  the  dramatic  emotion,  the  action,  and  the  scene, 
that  you  do  not  have  to  think  how  to  sing  the 
words.  That  comes  of  itself "...  but  they 
made  the  further  progress  of  the  composer  more 
difficult  thereby;  music  remained  merely  pretty. 
The  successors  of  these  supple  singers  even  learned 
to  sing  Richard  Strauss  with  broad  cantilena  ef- 
fects. As  for  Puccini!  At  a  performance  of 
Madama  Butterfly  a  Japanese  once  asked  why 
the  singers  were  producing  those  nice  round  tones 
in  moments  of  passion ;  why  not  ugly  sounds  ? 

Will  any  composer  arise  with  the  courage  to 
write  an  opera  which  cannot  be  sung?  Stravinsky 
almost  did  this  in  The  Nightingale  but  the  break 
must  be  more  complete.  Think  of  the  range  of 
sounds  made  by  the  Japanese,  the  gipsy,  the  Chi- 
nese, the  Spanish  folk-singers.  The  newest  com- 
poser may  ask  for  shrieks,  squeaks,  groans, 
[100] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

screams,  a  thousand  delicate  shades  of  guttural 
and  falsetto  vocal  tones  from  his  interpreters. 
Why  should  the  gamut  of  expression  on  our  opera 
stage  be  so  much  more  limited  than  it  is  in  our 
music  halls?  Why  should  the  Hottentots  be  able 
to  make  so  many  delightful  noises  that  we  are  in- 
capable of  producing?  Composers  up  to  date 
have  taken  into  account  a  singer's  apparent  in- 
ability to  bridge  difficult  intervals.  It  is  only  by 
ignoring  all  such  limitations  that  the  new  music 
will  definitely  emerge,  the  new  art  of  the  singer 
be  born.  What  marvellous  effects  might  be 
achieved  by  skipping  from  octave  to  octave  in 
the  human  voice!  When  will  the  obfusc  pundits 
stop  shouting  for  what  Avery  Hopwood  calls 
"  ascending  and  descending  tetrarchs !  " 

But,  some  one  will  argue,  with  the  passing  of 
bel  canto  what  will  become  of  the  operas  of  Mozart, 
Bellini,  Rossini,  and  Donizetti?  Who  will  sing 
them?  Fear  not,  lover  of  the  golden  age  of  song, 
bel  canto  is  not  passing  as  swiftly  as  that.  Sing- 
ers will  continue  to  be  born  into  this  world  who 
are  able  to  cope  with  the  floridity  of  this  music,  for 
they  are  born,  not  made.  Amelita  Galli-Curci 
will  have  her  successors,  just  as  Adelina  Patti 
had  hers.  Singers  of  this  kind  begin  to  sing 
naturally  in  their  infancy  and  they  continue  to 
[101] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

sing,  just  sing.  .  .  .  One  touch  of  drama  or  emo- 
tion and  their  voices  disappear.  Remember  Nel- 
lie Melba's  sad  experience  with  Siegfried.  The 
great  Mario  had  scarcely  studied  singing  (one 
authority  says  that  he  had  taken  a  few  lessons 
of  Meyerbeer!)  when  he  made  his  debut  in  Robert, 
le  Diable  and  there  is  no  evidence  that  he  studied 
very  much  afterwards.  Melba,  herself,  spent  less 
than  a  year  with  Mme.  Marches!  in  preparation 
for  her  opera  career.  Mme.  Galli-Curci  asserts 
that  she  has  had  very  little  to  do  with  professors 
and  I  do  not  think  Mme.  Tetrazzini  passed  her 
youth  in  mastering  vocalizzi.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
she  studied  singing  only  six  months.  Adelina 
Patti  told  Dr.  Hanslick  that  she  had  sung  Una 
voce  poco  fb  at  the  age  of  seven  with  the  same 
embellishments  which  she  used  later  when  she  ap- 
peared in  the  opera  in  which  the  air  occurs.  No, 
these  singers  are  freaks  of  nature  like  tortoise- 
shell  cats  and  like  those  rare  felines  they  are 
usually  females  of  late,  although  such  singers  as 
Battistini  and  Bond  remind  us  that  men  once  sang 
with  as  much  agility  as  women.  But  when  this 
type  of  singer  finally  becomes  extinct  naturally 
the  operas  which  depend  on  it  will  disappear  too 
for  the  same  reason  that  the  works  of  Monteverde 
and  Handel  have  dropped  out  of  the  repertory, 
[102] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

that  the  Greek  tragedies  and  the  Elizabethan  in- 
terludes are  no  longer  current  on  our  stage. 
None  of  our  actors  understands  the  style  of  Chi- 
nese plays ;  consequently  it  would  be  impossible  to 
present  one  of  them  in  our  theatre.  As  Deirdre 
says  in  Synge's  great  play,  "  It's  a  heartbreak 
to  the  wise  that  it's  for  a  short  space  we  have 
the  same  things  only."  We  cannot,  indeed,  have 
everything.  No  one  doubts  that  the  plays  of 
^Eschylus,  Euripides,  and  Sophocles  are  great 
dramas;  the  operas  I  have  just  referred  to  can 
also  be  admired  in  the  closet  and  probably  they 
will  be.  Even  today  no  more  than  two  works  of 
Rossini,  the  most  popular  composer  of  the  early 
Nineteenth  Century,  are  to  be  heard.  What  has 
become  of  Semiramide,  La  Cemrentola,  and  the 
others?  There  are  no  singers  to  sing  them  and 
so  they  have  been  dropped  from  the  repertory 
without  being  missed.  Can  any  of  our  young 
misses  hum  Di  Tanti  Palpiti?  You  know  they 
cannot.  I  doubt  if  you  can  find  two  girls  in  New 
York  (and  I  mean  girls  with  a  musical  education) 
who  can  tell  you  in  what  opera  the  air  belongs 
and  yet  in  the  early  Twenties  this  tune  was  as 
popular  as  Un  Bel  Di  is  today. 

Coloratura  singing  has  been  called  heartless,  not 
altogether  without  reason.     At  one  time  its  ex- 
[103] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

cmplars  fired  composers  to  their  best  efforts. 
That  day  has  passed.  That  day  passed  seventy 
years  ago.  It  may  occur  to  you  that  there  is 
something  wrong  when  singers  of  a  certain  type 
can  only  find  the  proper  means  to  exploit  their 
voices  in  works  of  the  past,  operas  which  are  dead. 
It  is  to  be  noted  that  Nellie  Melba  and  Amelita 
Galli-Curci  are  absolutely  unfitted  to  sing  in  music 
dramas  even  so  early  as  those  of  Richard  Wagner ; 
Dukas,  Strauss,  and  Stravinsky  are  utterly  be- 
yond them.  Even  Adelina  Patti  and  Marcella 
Sembrich  appeared  in  few,  if  any,  new  works  of 
importance.  They  had  no  bearing  on  the  march 
of  musical  history.  Here  is  an  entirely  para- 
doxical situation;  a  set  of  interpreters  who  exist, 
it  would  seem,  only  for  the  purpose  of  delivering 
to  us  the  art  of  the  past.  What  would  we  think 
of  an  actor  who  could  make  no  effect  save  in  the 
tragedies  of  Corneille?  It  is  such  as  these  who 
have  kept  Leo  Ornstein  from  writing  an  opera. 
Berlioz  forewarned  us  in  his  "  Memoirs."  He  was 
one  of  the  first  to  foresee  the  coming  day:  "  We 
shall  always  find  a  fair  number  of  female  sing- 
ers, popular  from  their  brilliant  singing  of  bril- 
liant trifles,  and  odious  to  the  great  masters  be- 
cause utterly  incapable  of  properly  interpreting 
them.  They  have  voices,  a  certain  knowledge  of 
[104] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

music,  and  flexible  throats:  they  are  lacking  in 
soul,  brain,  and  heart.  Such  women  are  regular 
monsters  and  all  the  more  formidable  to  composers 
because  they  are  often  charming  monsters.  This 
explains  the  weakness  of  certain  masters  in  writ- 
ing falsely  sentimental  parts,  which  attract  the 
public  by  their  brilliancy.  It  also  explains  the 
number  of  degenerate  works,  the  gradual  degrada- 
tion of  style,  the  destruction  of  all  sense  of  ex- 
pression, the  neglect  of  dramatic  properties,  the 
contempt  for  the  true,  the  grand,  and  the  beauti- 
ful, and  the  cynicism  and  decrepitude  of  art  in 
certain  countries." 

So,  even  if,  as  the  ponderous  criticasters  are 
continually  pointing  out,  the  age  of  bel  canto  is 
really  passing  there  is  no  actual  occasion  for  grief. 
All  fashions  in  art  pass  and  what  is  known  as  bel 
canto  is  just  as  much  a  fashion  as  the  bombastic 
style  of  acting  that  prevailed  in  Victor  Hugo's 
day  or  the  "  realistic  "  style  of  acting  we  prefer 
today.  All  interpretative  art  is  based  primarily 
on  the  material  with  which  it  deals  and  with  con- 
temporary public  taste.  This  kind  of  singing  is 
a  direct  derivative  of  a  certain  school  of  opera 
and  as  that  school  of  opera  is  fading  more  ex- 
pressive methods  of  singing  are  coming  to  the 
fore.  The  very  first  principle  of  bel  canto9  an 
[105] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

equalized  scale,  is  a  false  one.  With  an  equalized 
scale  a  singer  can  produce  a  perfectly  ordered 
series  of  notes,  a  charming  string  of  matched 
pearls,  but  nothing  else.  It  is  worthy  of  note 
that  it  is  impossible  to  sing  Spanish  or  negro 
folk-songs  with  an  equalized  scale.  Almost  all 
folk-music,  indeed,  exacts  a  vocal  method  of  its 
interpreter  quite  distinct  from  that  of  the  art 
song. 

.We  know  now  that  true  beauty  lies  deeper  than 
in  the  emission  of  "  perfect  tone."  Beauty  is 
truth  and  expressiveness.  The  new  art  of  the 
singer  should  develop  to  the  highest  degree  the 
significance  of  the  text.  Calve"  once  said  that  she 
did  not  become  a  real  artist  until  she  forgot  that 
she  had  a  beautiful  voice  and  thought  only  of  the 
proper  expression  the  music  demanded. 

Of  the  old  method  of  singing  only  one  quality 
will  persist  in  the  late  Twentieth  Century  (mind 
you,  this  is  deliberate  prophecy  but  it  is  about  as 
safe  as  it  would  be  to  predict  that  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt  will  live  to  give  several  hundred  more  per- 
formances of  La  Dame  aux  Camelias)  and  that  is 
style.  The  performance  of  any  work  demands  a 
knowledge  of  and  a  feeling  for  its  style  but  style 
is  about  the  last  thing  a  singer  ever  studies. 
[106] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

When,  however,  you  find  a  singer  who  understands 
style,  there  you  have  an  artist! 

Style  is  the  quality  which  endures  long  after 
the  singer  has  lost  the  power  to  produce  a  pure 
tone  or  to  contrive  accurate  phrasing  and  so 
makes  it  possible  for  artists  to  hold  their  places 
on  the  stage  long  after  their  voices  have  become 
partially  defective  or,  indeed,  have  actually  de- 
parted. It  is  knowledge  of  style  that  accounts 
for  the  long  careers  of  Marcella  Sembrich  and 
Lilli  Lehmann  or  of  Yvette  Guilbert  and  Maggie 
Cline  for  that  matter.  It  is  knowledge  of  style 
that  makes  De  Wolf  Hopper  a  great  artist  in  his 
interpretation  of  the  music  of  Sullivan  and  the 
words  of  Gilbert.  Some  artists,  indeed,  with 
barely  a  shred  of  voice,  have  managed  to  main- 
tain their  positions  on  the  stage  for  many  years 
through  a  knowledge  of  style.  I  might  mention 
Victor  Maurel,  Max  Heinrich  (not  on  the  opera 
stage,  of  course),  Antonio  Scotti,  and  Maurice 
Renaud. 

A  singer  may  be  born  with  the  ability  to  pro- 
duce pure  tones  (I  doubt  if  Mme.  Melba  learned 
much  about  tone  production  from  her  teachers), 
she  may  even  phrase  naturally,  although  this  is 
more  doubtful,  but  the  acquirement  of  style  is  a 
[107] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

long  and  tedious  process  and  one  which  generally 
requires  specialization.  For  style  is  elusive.  An 
auditor,  a  critic,  will  recognize  it  at  once  but 
very  few  can  tell  of  what  it  consists.  Neverthe- 
less it  is  fairly  obvious  to  the  casual  listener  that 
Olive  Fremstad  is  more  at  home  in  the  music 
(Iranian  <>t  (iluck  and  Wagner  than  she  is  in  Car- 
men and  Tosca,  and  that  Marcella  Sembrich  is 
happier  when  she  is  singing  Zerlina  (as  a  Mozart 
singer  she  has  had  no  equal  in  the  past  three 
decades)  than  when  she  is  singing  Lakme.  Mine. 
Melba  sings  Lucia  in  excellent  style  but  she  prob- 
ably could  not  convince  us  that  she  knows  how  to 
sing  a  Brahms  song.  So  far  as  I  know  she  has 
never  tried  to  do  so.  A  recent  example  comes 
to  mind  in  Maria  Marco,  the  Spanish  soprano,  who 
sings  music  of  her  own  country  in  her  own  lan- 
guage with  absolutely  irresistible  effect,  but  on 
one  occasion  when  she  attempted  Vissi  d'Arte  she 
was  transformed  immediately  into  a  second-rate 
Italian  singer.  Even  her  gestures,  ordinarily 
fully  of  grace  and  meaning,  had  become  conven- 
tionalized. 

If  this  quality  of  style  (which  after  all  means  an 
understanding  of  both   the   surface   manner   and 
underlying  purpose  of  a  composition  and  an  abil- 
ity to  transmit  this  understanding  across  the  foot- 
[108] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

lights)  is  of  such  manifest  importance  in  the 
field  of  art  music  it  is  doubly  so  in  the  field  of 
popular  or  folk-music.  A  foreigner  had  best 
think  twice  before  attempting  to  sing  a  Swedish 
song,  a  Hungarian  song,  or  a  Polish  song,  popu- 
lar or  folk.  (According  to  no  less  an  authority 
than  Cecil  J.  Sharp,  the  peasants  themselves  differ- 
entiate between  the  two  and  devote  to  each  a 
special  vocal  method.  Here  are  his  words  ["  Eng- 
lish Folk-Song  "]  :  "  But,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  vocal  method  of  the  folk-singer  is  in- 
separable from  the  folk-song.  It  is  a  cult  which 
has  grown  up  side  by  side  with  the  folk-song,  and 
is,  no  doubt,  part  and  parcel  of  the  same  tradition. 
When,  for  instance,  an  old  singing  man  sings  a 
modern  popular  song,  he  will  sing  it  in  quite  an- 
other way.  The  tone  of  his  voice  will  change  and 
he  will  slur  his  intervals,  after  the  approved  man- 
ner of  the  street-singer.  Indeed,  it  is  usually 
quite  possible  to  detect  a  genuine  folk-song  simply 
by  paying  attention  to  the  way  in  which  it  is 
sung.")  Strangers  as  a  rule  do  not  attempt  such 
matters  although  we  have  before  us  at  the  pres- 
ent time  the  very  interesting  case  of  Ratan  Devi. 
It  is  a  question,  however,  if  Ratan  Devi  would  be 
so  much  admired  if  her  songs  or  their  traditional 
manner  of  performance  were  more  familiar  to  us. 
[109] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

On  our  music  hall  stage  there  are  not  more  than 
ten  singers  who  understand  how  to  sing  American 
popular  songs  (and  these,  as  I  have  said  elsewhere 
at  some  length,1  constitute  America's  best  claim 
in  the  art  of  music).  It  is  very  difficult  to  sing 
them  well.  Tone  and  phrasing  have  nothing  to 
do  with  the  matter;  it  is  all  a  question  of  style 
(leaving  aside  for  the  moment  the  important  mat- 
ter of  personality  which  enters  into  an  account- 
ing for  any  artist's  popularity  or  standing). 
Elsie  Janis,  a  very  clever  mimic,  a  delightful 
dancer,  and  perhaps  the  most  deservedly  popular 
artist  on  our  music  hall  stage,  is  not  a  good  in- 
terpreter of  popular  songs.  She  cannot  be  com- 
pared in  this  respect  with  Bert  Williams,  Blanche 
Ring,  Stella  Mayhew,  Al  Jolson,  May  Irwin,  Ethel 
Levey,  Nora  Bayes,  Fannie  Brice,  or  Marie  Cahill. 
I  have  named  nearly  all  the  good  ones.  The 
spirit,  the  very  conscious  liberties  taken  with  the 
text  (the  vaudeville  singer  must  elaborate  his  own 
syncopations  as  the  singer  of  early  opera  em- 
broidered on  the  score  of  the  composer)  are  not 
matters  that  just  happen.  They  require  any 
amount  of  work  and  experience  with  audiences. 
None  of  the  singers  I  have  named  is  a  novice. 

i  In  an  essay  entitled  "  The  Great  American  Composer  "  in 
my  book,  "  Interpreters  and  Interpretations." 

[110] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

* 

Nor  will  you  find  novices  who  are  able  to  sing 
Schumann  and  Franz  lieder,  although  they  may 
be  blessed  with  well-nigh  perfect  vocal  organs. 

Still  the  music  critics  with  strange  persistence 
continue  to  adjudge  a  singer  by  the  old  formulae 
and  standards:  has  she  an  equalized  scale?  Has 
she  taste  in  ornament?  Does  she  overdo  the  use 
of  portamento,  messa  di  voce,  and  such  devices? 
How  is  her  shake?  etc.,  etc.  But  how  false,  how 
ridiculous,  this  is !  Fancy  the  result  if  new  writ- 
ers and  composers  were  criticized  by  the  old  laws 
(so  they  are,  my  son,  but  not  for  long)  !  Cre- 
ative artists  always  smash  the  old  tablets  of  com- 
mandments and  it  does  not  seem  to  me  that  in- 
terpretative artists  need  be  more  unprogressive. 
Acting  changes.  Judged  by  the  standards  by 
which  Edwin  Booth  was  assessed  John  Drew  is 
not  an  actor.  But  we  know  now  that  it  is  a  dif- 
ferent kind  of  acting.  Acting  has  been  flam- 
boyant, extravagant,  and  intensely  emotional, 
something  quite  different  from  real  life.  The 
present  craze  for  counterfeiting  the  semblance  of 
ordinary  existence  on  the  stage  will  also  die  out 
for  the  stage  is  not  life  and  representing  life  on 
the  stage  (except  in  a  conventionalized  or  decora- 
tive form)  is  not  art.  Our  new  actors  (with  our 
new  playwrights)  will  develop  a  new  and  fantas- 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

tic  mode  of  expression  which  will  supersede  the 
present  fashion.  .  .  .  Rubinstein  certainly  did 
not  play  the  piano  like  Chopin.  Presently  a 
virtuoso  will  appear  who  will  refuse  to  play  the 
piano  at  all  and  a  new  instrument  without  a  tem- 
pered scale  will  be  invented  so  that  he  may  indulge 
in  all  the  subtleties  between  half-tones  which  are 
denied  to  the  pianist. 

It's  all  very  well  to  cry,  "  Halt !  "  and  "  Who 
goes  there?  "  but  you  can't  stop  progress  any 
more  than  you  can  stop  the  passing  of  time. 
The  old  technique  of  the  singer  breaks  down  be- 
fore the  new  technique  of  the  composer  and  the 
musician  with  daring  will  go  still  further  if  the 
singer  will  but  follow.  Would  that  some  singer 
would  have  the  complete  courage  to  lead!  But 
do  not  misunderstand  me.  The  road  to  Par- 
nassus is  no  shorter  because  it  has  been  newly 
paved.  Indeed  I  think  it  is  longer.  Caffarelli 
studied  six  years  before  he  made  his  debut  as  "  the 
greatest  singer  in  the  world  "  but  I  imagine  that 
Waslav  Nijinsky  studied  ten  before  he  set  foot 
on  the  stage.  The  new  music  drama,  combining 
as  it  does  principles  from  all  the  arts  is  all- 
demanding  of  its  interpreters.  The  new  singer 
must  learn  how  to  move  gracefully  and  awkwardly, 
how  to  make  both  fantastic  and  realistic  gestures, 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

always  unconventional  gestures,  because  conven- 
tions stamp  the  imitator.  She  must  peer  into 
every  period,  glance  at  every  nation.  Every 
nerve  centre  must  be  prepared  to  express  any 
adumbration  of  plasticity.  Many  of  the  new 
operas,  Carmen,  La  Dolores,  Salome,  Elektra,  to 
name  a  few,  call  for  interpretative  dancing  of  the 
first  order.  Madama  Butterfly  and  Lakme  de- 
mand a  knowledge  of  national  characteristics. 
Pelleas  et  Melisande  and  Ariane  et  Barbe-Bleue  re- 
quire of  the  interpreter  absolutely  distinct  enun- 
ciation. In  Handel's  operas  the  phrases  were  re- 
peated so  many  times  that  the  singer  was  excused 
if  he  proclaimed  the  meaning  of  the  line  once. 
After  that  he  could  alter  the  vowels  and  con- 
sonants to  suit  his  vocal  convenience.  Monna 
Vanna  and  Tristan  und  Isolde  exact  of  their  in- 
terpreters acting  of  the  highest  poetic  and  imag- 
inative scope.  .  .  . 

It  is  a  question  whether  certain  singers  of  our 
day  have  not  solved  these  problems  with  greater 
success  than  that  for  which  they  are  given 
credit.  .  .  .  Yvette  Guilbert  has  announced  pub- 
licly that  she  never  had  a  teacher,  that  she  would 
not  trust  her  voice  to  a  teacher.  The  enchant- 
ing Yvette  practises  a  sound  by  herself  until  she  is 
able  to  make  it ;  she  repeats  a  phrase  until  she  can 
[113] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

deliver  it  without  an  interrupting  breath,  and  is 
there  a  singer  on  the  stage  more  expressive  than 
Yvette  Guilbert?  She  sings  a  little  tenor,  a  little 
baritone,  and  a  little  bass.  She  can  succeed  al- 
most invariably  in  making  the  effect  she  sets  out 
to  make.  And  Yvette  Guilbert  is  the  answer  to 
the  statement  often  made  that  unorthodox  methods 
of  singing  ruin  the  voice.  Ruin  it  for  perform- 
ances of  Linda  di  Chaminoux  and  La  Sonnambula 
very  possibly,  but  if  young  singers  sit  about  saving 
their  voices  for  performances  of  these  operas  they 
are  more  than  likely  to  die  unheard.  It  is  a  fact 
that  good  singing  in  the  old-fashioned  sense  will 
help  nobody  out  in  Elektra,  Ariane  et  Barbe- 
Bleue,  Pettea*  et  Melisande,  or  The  Nightingale. 
These  works  are  written  in  new  styles  and  they 
demand  a  new  technique.  Put  Mme.  Melba,  Mme. 
Destinn,  Mme.  Sembrich,  or  Mme.  Galli-Curci  to 
work  on  these  scores  and  you  will  simply  have  a 
sad  mess. 

We  have,  I  think,  but  a  faint  glimmering  of 
what  vocal  expressiveness  may  become.  Such 
torch-bearers  as  Mariette  Mazarin  and  Feodor 
Chaliapine  have  been  procaciously  excoriated  by 
the  critics.  Until  recently  Mary  Garden,  who  of 
all  artists  on  the  lyric  stage,  is  the  most  nearly  in 
touch  with  the  singing  of  the  future,  has  been 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

treated  as  a  charlatan  and  a  fraud.  W.  J.  Hen- 
derson once  called  her  the  "  Queen  of  Unsong." 
Well,  perhaps  she  is,  but  she  is  certainly  better 
able  to  cope  artistically  with  the  problems  of  the 
modern  music  drama  than  such  Queens  of  Song  as 
Marcella  Sembrich  and  Adelina  Patti  would  be. 
Perhaps  Unsong  is  the  name  of  the  new  art. 

I  do  not  think  I  have  ever  been  backward  in  ex- 
pressing my  appreciation  of  this  artist.  My  essay 
devoted  to  her  in  "  Interpreters  and  Interpreta- 
tions "  will  certainly  testify  eloquently  as  to  my 
previous  attitude  in  regard  to  her.  But  it  has 
not  always  been  so  with  some  of  my  colleagues. 
Since  she  has  been  away  from  us  they  have  learned 
something;  they  have  watched  and  listened  to 
others  and  so  when  Mary  Garden  came  back  to 
New  York  in  Monna  Vanna  in  January,  1918,  they 
were  ready  to  sing  choruses  of  praise  in  her  honour. 
They  have  been  encomiastic  even  in  regard  to  her 
voice  and  her  manner  of  singing. 

Even  my  own  opinion  of  this  artist's  work  has 
undergone  a  change.  I  have  always  regarded  her 
as  one  of  the  few  great  interpreters,  but  in  the 
light  of  recent  experience  I  now  feel  assured  that 
she  is  the  greatest  artist  on  the  contemporary  lyric 
stage.  It  is  not,  I  would  insist,  Mary  Garden  that 
has  changed  so  much  as  we  ourselves.  She  has,  it 
[115] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

is  true,  polished  her  interpretations  until  they 
seem  incredibly  perfect,  but  has  there  ever  been  a 
time  when  she  gave  anything  but  perfect  imper- 
sonations of  Melisande  or  Thais?  Has  she  ever 
been  careless  before  the  public?  I  doubt  it. 

The  fact  of  the  matter  is  that  when  Mary  Gar- 
den first  came  to  New  York  only  a  few  of  us  were 
ready  to  receive  her  at  anywhere  near  her  true 
worth.  In  a  field  where  mediocrity  and  brainless- 
ness,  lack  of  theatrical  instinct  and  vocal  in- 
sipidity are  fairly  the  rule  her  dominant  person- 
ality, her  unerring  search  for  novelty  of  expres- 
sion, the  very  completeness  of  her  dramatic  and 
vocal  pictures,  annoyed  the  philistincs,  the  profes- 
sors, and  the  academicians.  They  had  been  accus- 
tomed to  taking  their  opera  quietly  with  their  after- 
dinner  coffee  and,  on  the  whole,  they  preferred  it 
that  way. 

But  the  main  obstacle  in  the  way  of  her  complete 
success  lay  in  the  matter  of  her  voice,  of  her  sing- 
ing. Of  the  quality  of  any  voice  there  can  always 
exist  a  thousand  different  opinions.  To  me  the 
great  beauty  of  the  middle  register  of  Mary  Gar- 
den's voice  has  always  been  apparent.  But  what 
was  not  so  evident  at  first'  was  the  absolute  fitness 
of  this  voice  and  her  method  of  using  it  for  the 
dramatic  style  of  the  artist  and  for  the  artistic 
[116] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

demands  of  the  works  in  which  she  appeared. 
Thoroughly  musical,  Miss  Garden  has  often  puz- 
zled her  critical  hearers  by  singing  Faust  in  one 
vocal  style  and  Thais  in  another.  But  she  was 
right  and  they  were  wrong.  She  might,  indeed, 
have  experimented  still  further  with  a  new  vocal 
technique  if  she  had  been  given  any  encouragement 
but  encouragement  is  seldom  offered  to  any  inno- 
vator. As  Edgar  Saltus  puts  it,  "  The  number 
of  people  who  regard  a  new  idea  or  a  fresh  theory 
as  a  personal  insult  is  curiously  large ;  indeed  they 
are  more  frequent  today  than  when  Socrates 
quaffed  the  hemlock."  It  must,  therefore,  be  a 
source  of  ironic  amusement  to  her  to  find  herself 
now  appreciated  not  alone  by  her  public,  which 
has  always  been  loyal  and  adoring,  but  also  by 
the  professors  themselves. 

It  would  do  no  harm  to  any  singer  to  study  the 
multitude  of  vocal  effects  this  artist  achieves.  I 
can  think  of  nobody  who  could  not  learn  something 
from  her.  How,  for  example,  she  gives  her  voice 
the  hue  and  colour  of  a  jeune  ftlle  in  Pelleas  et 
Melisande,  for  although  Melisande  had  been  the 
bride  of  Barbe-Bleue  before  Golaud  discovered  her 
in  the  forest  she  had  never  learned  to  be  anything 
else  than  innocent  and  distraught,  unhappy  and 
mysterious.  Her  treatment  of  certain  important 
[117] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

phrases  in  this  work  is  so  electrifying  in  its  effect 
that  the  heart  of  every  auditor  is  pierced.  Re- 
member, for  example,  her  question  to  Pelleas  at 
the  end  of  the  first  act,  "  Pourquoi  partez-vous?  " 
to  which  she  imparts  a  kind  of  dreamy  intuitive 
longing ;  recall  the  amazement  shining  through  her 
grief  at  Golaud's  command  that  she  ask  Pelleas  to 
accompany  her  on  her  search  for  the  lost  ring: 
"Pelleas?  —  Avec  Pelleas?  —  Mais  Pelleas  ne 
voudra  pas.  .  .  ." ;  and  do  not  forget  the  terrified 
cry  which  signals  the  discovery  of  the  hidden 
Golaud  in  the  park,  "  II  y  a  quelqu'un  derriere 
nous!" 

In  Monna  Varma  her  most  magnificent  vocal  ges- 
ture rested  on  the  single  word  Si  in  reply  to 
Guido's  "  Tu  ne  reviendras  pas?  "  Her  per- 
formance of  this  work,  however,  offers  many  ex- 
amples of  just  such  instinctive  intonations.  One 
more,  I  must  mention,  her  answer  to  Guido's  in- 
sistent, "  Cet  homme  t'a-t-U  prise?  "  .  .  .  "  J'ai 
dit  la  verite.  .  .  .  II  ne  m'a  pas  touchee"  sung 
with  dignity,  with  force,  with  womanliness,  and  yet 
with  growing  impatience  and  a  touch  of  sadness. 

Let  me  quote  Pitts  Sanborn :     "  It  is  easy  to 

be   flippant   about   Miss   Garden's    singing.     Her 

faults  of  voice  and  technique  are  patent  to  a  child, 

though  he  might  not  name  them.     One  who  has 

[118] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

become  a  man  can  ponder  the  greatness  of  her 
singing.  I  do  not  mean  exclusively  in  Debussy, 
though  we  all  know  that  as  a  singer  of  Debussy 
.  .  .  she  has  scarce  a  rival.  Take  her  mezzo, 
voce  and  her  phrasing  in  the  second  act  of 
Monna  Van/no,,  take  them  and  bow  down  before 
them.  Ponder  a  moment  her  singing  in  Thais. 
The  converted  Thais,  about  to  betake  herself 
desertward  with  the  insistent  monk,  has  a  solo  to 
sing.  The  solo  is  Massenet,  simon-pure  Massenet, 
the  idol  of  the  Paris  midinette.  Miss  Garden,  with 
a  defective  voice,  a  defective  technique,  exalts  and 
magnifies  that  passage  till  it  might  be  the  noblest 
air  of  Handel  or  of  Mozart.  By  a  sheer  and  un- 
ashamed reliance  on  her  command  of  style,  Miss 
Garden  works  that  miracle,  transfigures  Massenet 
into  something  superearthly,  overpowering. 
Will  you  rise  up  to  deny  that  is  singing?  " 

As  for  her  acting,  there  can  scarcely  be  two 
opinions  about  that!  She  is  one  of  the  few  pos- 
sessors of  that  rare  gift  of  imparting  atmos- 
phere and  mood  to  a  characterization.  Some 
exceptional  actors  and  singers  accomplish  this  feat 
occasionally.  Mary  Garden  has  scarcely  ever 
failed  to  do  so.  The  moment  Melisande  is  dis- 
closed to  our  view,  for  example,  she  seems  to  be 
surrounded  by  an  aura  entirely  distinct  from  the 
[119] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

aura  which  surrounds  Monna  Vanna,  Jean,  Thais, 
Salome,  or  Sapho.  She  becomes,  indeed,  so  much 
a  part  of  the  character  she  assumes  that  the 
spectator  finds  great  difficulty  in  dissociating  her 
from  that  character,  and  I  have  found  those  who, 
having  seen  Mary  Garden  in  only  one  part,  were 
quite  ready  to  generalize  about  her  own  per- 
sonality from  the  impression  they  had  received. 

One  of  the  tests  of  great  acting  is  whether  or 
not  an  artist  remains  in  the  picture  when  she  is 
not  singing  or  speaking.  Mary  Garden  knows  how 
to  listen  on  the  stage.  She  does  not  need  to  move 
or  speak  to  make  herself  a  part  of  the  action  and 
she  is  never  guilty  of  such  an  offence  against  ar- 
tistry as  that  committed  by  Tamagno,  who,  ac- 
cording to  Victor  Maurel,  allowed  a  scene  in  Otello 
to  drop  to  nothing  while  he  prepared  himself  to 
emit  a  high  B. 

Watching  her  magnificent  performance  of 
Monna  Vanna  it  struck  me  that  she  would  make  an 
incomparable  Isolde.  At  the  present  moment  I 
cannot  imagine  Mary  Garden  learning  Boche  or 
singing  in  it  even  if  she  knew  it,  but  if  some  one 
will  present  us  Wagner's  (who  hated  the  Germans 
as  much  as  Theodore  Roosevelt  does)  music  drama 
in  French  or  English  with  Mary  Garden  as  Isolde, 
[120] 


New    Art    of    the    Singer 

I  think  the  public  will  thank  me  for  having  sug- 
gested it. 

Or  it  would  be  even  better  if  Schoenberg,  or 
Stravinsky,  or  Leo  Ornstein,  inspired  by  the  new 
light  the  example  of  such  a  singer  has  cast  over 
our  lyric  stage,  would  write  a  music  drama,  ignor- 
ing the  technique  and  the  conventions  of  the  past, 
as  Debussy  did  when  he  wrote  PeUeas  et  Me- 
lisande  (creating  opportunities  which  any  opera- 
goer  of  the  last  decade  knows  how  gloriously  Miss 
Garden  realized).  It  is  thus  that  the  new  order 
will  gradually  become  established.  And  then  the 
new  art  .  .  .  the  new  art  of  the  singer.  .  .  . 

April  18,  1918. 


[1*1] 


Au  Bal  Musette 

Aupres  de  ma  blonde 

Qu'il  fait  bon,  fait  bon,  bon,  bon.  .  .  ." 

Old  French  Song. 


Au  Bal  Musette 


IT  has  often  been  remarked  by  philosophers 
and  philistines  alike  that  the  commonest  facts 
of  existence  escape  our  attention  until  they 
are  impressed  upon  it  in  some  unusual  way.  For 
example  I  knew  nothing  of  the  sovereign  powers 
of  citronella  as  a  mosquito  dispatcher  until  a 
plague  of  the  insects  drove  me  to  make  enquiries  of 
a  chemist.  For  years  I  believed  that  knocking  the 
necks  off  bottles,  lacking  an  opener,  was  the  only 
alternative.  A  friend  who  caught  me  in  this  pre- 
dicament showed  me  the  other  use  to  which  the 
handles  of  high-boy  drawers  could  be  put.  It  was 
long  my  habit  to  quickly  dispose  of  trousers  which 
had  been  disfigured  by  cigarette  burns,  but  that 
was  before  I  had  heard  of  stoppage,  a  process  by 
which  the  original  weave  is  cleverly  counterfeited. 
And,  wishing  to  dance,  in  Paris,  I  have  been  guilty 
of  visits  to  the  great  dance  halls  and  to  the  small 
smart  places  where  champagne  is  oppressively  the 
only  listed  beverage.  But  that  was  before  I  dis- 
covered the  bal  musette. 

One  July  night  in  Paris  I  had  dinner  with  a  cer- 
tain lady  at  the  Cou-Cou,  followed  by  cognac  at 
the   Savoyarde.     I   find   nothing   strange   in   this 
[125] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


program ;  it  seems  to  me  that  I  must  have  dined 
at  the  Cou-Cou  with  every  one  I  have  known  in 
Paris  from  time  to  time,  a  range  of  acquaintance- 
ship including  Fernand,  the  apache,  and  the 
Comtesse  de  J—  — ,  and  cognac  at  the  Savoyarde 
usually  followed  the  dinner.  This  evening  at  the 
Cou-Cou  then  resembled  any  other  evening.  Do 
you  know  how  to  go  there  ?  You  must  take  a  taxi- 
cab  to  the  foot  of  the  hill  of  Montmartre  and  then 
be  drawn  up  in  the  finiculaire  to  the  top  where 
the  church  of  Sacre-Coeur  squats  proudly,  for  all 
the  world  like  a  mammoth  Buddha  (of  course 
you  may  ride  all  the  way  up  the  mountain  in  your 
taxi  if  you  like).  From  Sacre-Coeur  one  turns  to 
the  left  around  the  board  fence  which,  it  would 
seem,  will  always  hedge  in  this  unfinished  monu- 
ment of  pious  Catholics ;  still  turning  to  the  left, 
through  the  Place  du  Tertre,  in  which  one  must 
not  be  stayed  by  the  pleasant  sight  of  the  Mont- 
martroises  bourgeoises  eating  petite  marmite  in 
the  open  air,  one  arrives  at  the  Place  du  Calvaire. 
The  tables  of  the  Restaurant  Cou-Cou  occupy 
nearly  the  whole  of  this  tiny  square,  to  which  there 
are  only  two  means  of  approach,  one  up  the  stairs 
from  the  city  below,  and  the  other  from  the  Place 
du  Tertre.  An  artist's  house  disturbs  the  view  on 
the  side  towards  Paris ;  opposite  is  the  restaurant, 
[126] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


flanked  on  the  right  by  a  row  of  modest  apartment 
houses,  to  which  one  gains  entrance  through  a 
high  wall  by  means  of  a  small  gate.  Sundry  visi- 
tors to  these  houses,  some  on  bicycles,  make  occa- 
sional interruptions  in  the  dinner.  .  .  .  From  over 
this  wall,  too,  comes  the  huge  Cheshire  cat  (much 
bigger  than  Alice's,  a  beautiful  animal),  which 
lounges  about  in  the  hope,  frequently  realized,  that 
some  one  will  give  him  a  chicken  bone.  .  .  .  Con- 
terminous to  the  restaurant,  on  the  right,  is  a  tiny 
cottage,  fronted  by  a  still  tinier  garden,  fenced  in 
and  gated.  Many  of  the  visitors  to  the  Cou-Cou 
hang  their  hats  and  sticks  on  this  fence  and  its 
gate.  I  have  never  seen  the  occupants  of  the 
cottage  in  any  of  my  numerous  visits  to  this  open 
air  restaurant,  but  once,  towards  eleven  o'clock 
the  crowd  in  the  square  becoming  too  noisy,  the 
upper  windows  were  suddenly  thrown  up  and  a 
pailful  of  water  descended.  ..."  Per  Baccho!  " 
quoth  the  inn-keeper  for,  it  must  be  known,  the 
Restaurant  Cou-Cou  is  Italian  by  nature  of  its 
patron  and  its  cooking. 

This  night,  I  say,  had  been  as  the  others.  The 
Cou-Cou  is  (and  in  this  respect  it  is  not  exceptional 
in  Paris)  safe  to  return  to  if  you  have  found  it  to 
your  liking  in  years  gone  by.  Perhaps  some  day 
the  small  boy  of  the  place  will  be  grown  up.  He 
[  127  ] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


is  a  real  enfant  terrible.  It  is  his  pleasure  to 
tutoyer  the  guests,  to  amuse  himself  by  pretending 
to  serve  them,  only  to  bring  the  wrong  dishes,  or 
none  at  all.  If  you  call  to  him  he  is  deaf.  Any 
hope  of  revanche  is  abandoned  in  the  reflection  of 
the  super-retaliations  he  himself  conceives.  One 
young  man  who  expresses  himself  freely  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Pietro  receives  a  plate  of  hot  soup  down 
the  back  of  his  neck,  followed  immediately  by  a 
"  Pardon,  Monsieur"  said  not  without  respect. 
But  where  might  Pietro's  father  be?  He  is  in  the 
kitchen  cooking  and  if  you  find  your  dinner  com- 
ing too  slowly  at  the  hands  of  the  distracted  maid 
servants,  who  also  have  to  put  up  with  Pietro,  go 
into  the  kitchen,  passing  under  the  little  vine-clad 
porch  wherein  you  may  discover  a  pair  of  lovers, 
and  help  yourself.  And  if  you  find  some  one  else's 
dinner  more  to  your  liking  than  your  own  take  that 
off  the  stove  instead.  At  the  Cou-Cou  you  pay 
for  what  you  eat,  not  for  what  you  order.  And 
the  Signora,  Pietro's  mother?  That  unhappy 
woman  usually  stands  in  front  of  the  door,  where 
she  interferes  with  the  passage  of  the  girls  going 
for  food.  She  wrings  her  hands  and  moans, 
"  Mon  Dieu,  quel  monde!  "  with  the  idea  that  she 
is  helping  vastly  in  the  manipulation  of  the 
machinery  of  the  place. 

[128] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


And  the  monde;  who  goes  there?  It  is  not  too 
chic,  this  monde,  and  yet  it  is  surely  not  bour- 
geois; if  one  does  not  recognize  M.  Rodin  or  M. 
Georges  Feydeau,  yet  there  are  compensations. 
.  .  .  The  girls  who  come  attended  by  bearded  com- 
panions, are  unusually  pretty ;  one  sees  them  after- 
wards at  the  bars  and  bals  if  one  does  not  go  to 
the  Abbaye  or  Page's.  ...  It  makes  a  very  pleas- 
ant picture,  the  Place  du  Calvaire  towards  nine 
o'clock  on  a  summer  night  when  tiny  lights  with 
pink  globes  are  placed  on  the  tables.  The  little 
square  twinkles  with  them  and  the  couples  at  the 
tables  become  very  gay,  and  sometimes  sentimen- 
tal. And  when  the  pink  lights  appear  a  small 
boy  in  blue  trousers  comes  along  to  light  the  street 
lamp.  Then  the  urchins  gather  on  the  wall  which 
hedges  in  the  garden  on  the  fourth  side  of  the 
square  and  chatter,  chatter,  chatter,  about  all 
the  things  that  French  boys  chatter  about. 
Naturally  they  have  a  good  deal  to  say  about  the 
people  who  are  eating. 

I  have  described  the  Cou-Cou  as  it  was  this 
night  and  as  it  has  been  all  the  nights  during  the 
past  eight  summers  that  I  have  been  there. 
The  dinner  too  is  always  the  same.  It  is  served  a 
la  carte,  but  one  is  not  given  much  choice.  There 
is  always  a  pot  age,  always  spaghetti,  always 
[129] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


chicken  and  a  salad,  always  a  lobster,  and  zabag- 
lione  if  one  wants  it.  The  wine  —  it  is  called 
chianti  —  is  tolerable.  And  the  addition  is  made 
upon  a  slate  with  a  piece  of  white  chalk.  "  Qu'est- 
ce  que  monsieur  a  mange?  "  Sometimes  it  is  very 
difficult  to  remember,  but  it  is  necessary.  Such 
honesty  compels  an  exertion.  It  is  all  added  up 
and  for  the  two  of  us  on  this  evening,  or  any  other 
evening,  it  may  come  to  nine  francs,  which  is  not 
much  to  pay  for  a  good  dinner. 

Then,  on  this  evening,  and  every  other  evening, 
we  went  on,  back  as  we  had  come,  round  past  the 
other  side  of  Sacre-Coeur,  past  the  statue  of  the 
Chevalier  who  was  martyred  for  refusing  to  salute 
a  procession  (why  he  refused  I  have  never  found 
out,  although  I  have  asked  everybody  who  has  ever 
dined  with  me  at  the  Cou-Cou)  to  the  Cafe  Savo- 
yarde,  the  broad  windows  of  which  look  out  over 
pretty  much  all  the  Northeast  of  Paris,  over  a 
glittering  labyrinth  of  lights  set  in  an  obscure 
sea  of  darkness.  It  was  not  far  from  here  that 
Louise  and  Julien  kept  house  when  they  were  in- 
terrupted by  Louise's  mother,  and  it  was  looking 
down  over  these  lights  that  they  swore  those  eter- 
nal vows,  ending  with  Louise's  "  C'est  une  Feerie!  " 
and  Julien's  "  Non,  c'est  la  vie! "  One  always 
remembers  these  things  and  feels  them  at  the 
[130] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


Savoyarde  as  keenly  as  one  did  sometime  in  the 
remote  past  watching  Mary  Garden  and  Leon 
Beyle  from  the  topmost  gallery  of  the  Opera- 
Comique  after  an  hour  and  a  half  wait  in  the 
queue  for  one  franc  tickets  (there  were  always 
people  turned  away  from  performances  of  Louise 
and  so  it  was  necessary  to  be  there  early ;  some 
other  operas  did  not  demand  such  punctuality). 
There  is  a  terrace  outside  the  Savoyarde,  a  tiny 
terrace,  with  just  room  for  one  man,  who  griddles 
gaufrettes,  and  three  or  four  tiny  tables  with 
chairs.  At  one  of  these  we  sat  that  night  (just 
as  I  had  sat  so  many  times  before)  and  sipped  our 
cognac. 

It  is  difficult  in  an  adventure  to  remember  just 
when  the  departure  comes,  when  one  leaves  the 
past  and  strides  into  the  future,  but  I  think  that 
moment  befell  me  in  this  cafe  .  .  .  for  it  was  the 
first  time  I  had  ever  seen  a  cat  there.  He  was  a 
lazy,  splendid  animal.  In  New  York  he  would  have 
been  an  oddity,  but  in  Paris  there  are  many  such 
beasts.  Tawny  he  was  and  soft  to  the  touch  and 
of  a  hugeness.  He  was  lying  on  the  bar  and  as  I 
stroked  his  coat  he  purred  melifluously.  ...  I 
stroked  his  warm  fur  and  thought  how  I  belonged 
to  the  mystic  band  (Gautier,  Baudelaire,  Meri- 
mee,  all  knew  the  secrets)  of  those  who  are  ac- 
[131] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


quainted  with  cats ;  it  is  a  feeling  of  pride  we  have 
that  differentiates  us  from  the  dog  lovers,  the 
pride  of  the  appreciation  of  indifference  or  of 
conscious  preference.  And  it  was,  I  think,  as  I 
was  stroking  the  cat  that  my  past  was  smote 
away  from  me  and  I  was  projected  into  the  ad- 
venture for,  as  I  lifted  the  animal  into  my  arms, 
the  better  to  feel  its  warmth  and  softness,  it 
sprang  with  strength  and  unsheathed  claws  out 
of  my  embrace,  and  soon  was  back  on  the  bar 
again,  "  just  as  if  nothing  had  happened."  There 
was  blood  on  my  face.  Madame,  behind  the  bar, 
was  apologetic  but  not  chastening.  "  II  avait 
peur"  she  said.  "  II  n'est  pas  mediant.^  The 
wound  was  not  deep,  and  as  I  bent  to  pet  the  cat 
again  he  again  purred.  I  had  interfered  with  his 
habits  and,  as  I  discovered  later,  he  had  interfered 
with  mine. 

We  decided  to  walk  down  the  hill  instead  of 
riding  down  in  the  finiculaire,  down  the  stairs 
which  form  another  of  the  pictures  in  Louise,  with 
the  abutting  houses,  into  the  rooms  of  which  one 
looks,  conscious  of  prying.  And  you  see  the  old 
in  these  interiors,  making  shoes,  or  preparing  din- 
ner, or  the  middle-aged  going  to  bed,  but  the  young 
one  never  sees  in  the  houses  in  the  summer.  .  .  . 
It  was  early  and  we  decided  to  dance ;  I  thought  of 
[132] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


the  Moulin  de  la  Galette,  which  I  had  visited  twice 
before.  The  Moulin  de  la  Galette  waves  its  gaunt 
arms  in  the  air  half  way  up  the  butte  of  Mont- 
martre ;  it  serves  its  purpose  as  a  dance  hall  of  the 
quarter.  One  meets  the  pretty  little  Montmart- 
roises  there  and  the  young  artists ;  the  entrance 
fee  is  not  exorbitant  and  one  may  drink  a  bock. 
And  when  I  have  been  there,  sitting  at  a  small 
table  facing  the  somewhat  vivid  mural  decoration 
which  runs  the  length  of  one  wall,  drinking  my 
brown  bock,  I  have  remembered  the  story  which 
Mary  Garden  once  told  me,  how  Albert  Carre  to 
celebrate  the  hundredth  —  or  was  it  the  twenty- 
fifth  ?  —  performance  of  Louise,  gave  a  dinner 
there  —  so  near  to  the  scenes  he  had  conceived  — 
to  Charpentier  and  how,  surrounded  by  some  of 
the  most  notable  musicians  and  poets  of  France, 
the  composer  had  suddenly  fallen  from  the  table, 
face  downwards ;  he  had  starved  himself  so  long  to 
complete  his  masterpiece  that  food  did  not  seem 
to  nourish  him.  It  was  the  end  of  a  brilliant  din- 
ner. He  was  carried  away  ...  to  the  Riviera; 
some  said  that  he  had  lost  his  mind;  some  said 
that  he  was  dying.  Mary  Garden  herself  did  not 
know,  at  the  time  she  first  sang  Louise  in  America, 
what  had  happened  to  him.  But  a  little  later  the 
rumour  that  he  was  writing  a  trilogy  was  spread 
[133] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


about  and  soon  it  was  a  known  fact  that  at  least 
one  other  part  of  the  trilogy  had  been  written, 
Jtdien;  that  lyric  drama  was  produced  and  every- 
body knows  the  story  of  its  failure.  Charpentier, 
the  natural  philosopher  and  the  poet  of  Mont- 
martre,  had  said  everything  he  had  to  say  in 
Louise.  As  for  the  third  play,  one  has  heard 
nothing  about  that  yet. 

But  on  this  evening  the  Moulin  de  la  Galette  was 
closed  and  then  I  remembered  that  it  was  open  on 
Thursday  and  this  was  Wednesday.  Is  it 
Thursday,  Saturday,  and  Sunday  that  the  Moulin 
de  la  Galette  is  open?  I  think  so.  By  this  time 
we  were  determined  to  dance ;  but  where  ?  We  had 
no  desire  to  go  to  some  stupid  place,  common  to 
tourists,  no  such  place  as  the  Bal  Tabarin  lured 
us ;  nor  did  the  Grelot  in  the  Place  Blanche,  for 
we  had  been  there  a  night  or  two  before.  The 
Elysee  Montmartre  (celebrated  by  George  Moore) 
would  be  closed.  Its  patron  followed  the  schedule 
of  days  adopted  for  the  Galette.  .  .  .  To  chance 
I  turn  in  such  dilemmas.  ...  I  consulted  a  small 
boy,  who,  with  his  companion,  had  been  good 
enough  to  guide  us  through  many  winding  streets 
to  the  Moulin.  Certainly  he  knew  of  a  bal. 
Would  momieur  care  to  visit  a  bal  musette?  His 
companion  was  horrified.  I  caught  the  phrase 
[134] 


Aii    Bal    Musette 


"  mal  frequent e."     Our  curiosity  was  aroused  and 
we  gave  the  signal  to  advance. 

There  were  two  grounds  for  my  personal  cu- 
riosity beyond  the  more  obvious  ones.  I  seemed 
to  remember  to  have  read  somewhere  that  the 
ladies  of  the  court  of  Louis  XIV  played  the 
musette,  which  is  French  for  bag-pipe.  It  was  the 
fashionable  instrument  of  an  epoch  and  the  mu- 
settes played  by  the  grandes  dames  were  elab- 
orately decorated.  The  word  in  time  slunk  into 
the  dictionaries  of  musical  terms  as  descriptive  of 
a  drone  bass.  Many  of  Gluck's  ballet  airs  bear 
the  title,  Musette.  Perhaps  the  bass  was  even  per- 
formed on  a  bag-pipe.  ..."  Mal  frequente  "  in 
Parisian  argot  has  a  variety  of  significations;  in 
this  particular  instance  it  suggested  apaches  to 
me.  A  bal,  for  instance,  attended  by  cocottes, 
mannequins,  or  modeles,  could  not  be  described  as 
mal  frequente  unless  one  were  speaking  to  a  board- 
ing school  miss,  for  all  the  public  bals  in  Paris  are 
so  attended.  No,  the  words  spoken  to  me,  in  this 
connection,  could  only  mean  apaches.  The  con- 
fusion of  epochs  began  to  invite  my  interest  and  I 
wondered,  in  my  mind's  eye,  how  a  Louis  XIV 
apache  would  dress,  how  he  would  be  represented 
at  a  costume  ball,  and  a  picture  of  a  ragged  silk- 
betrousered  person,  flaunting  a  plaid-bellied  in- 
'  135 


Au    Bal    Musette 


strument  came  to  mind.  An  imagination  often 
leads  one  violently  astray. 

The  two  urchins  were  marching  us  through 
street  after  street,  one  of  them  whistling  that 
pleasing  tune,  Le  lendemain  elle  etait  souriante. 
Dark  passage  ways  intervened  between  us  and  our 
destination :  we  threaded  them.  The  cobble  stones 
of  the  underfoot  were  not  easy  to  walk  on  for  my 
companion,  shod  in  high-heels  from  the  Place 
Vendome.  .  .  .  The  urchins  amused  each  other 
and  us  by  capers  on  the  way.  They  could  have 
made  our  speed  walking  on  their  hands,  and  they 
accomplished  at  least  a  third  of  the  journey  this 
way.  Of  course,  I  deluged  them  with  large  round 
five  and  ten  centimes  pieces. 

We  arrived  at  last  before  a  door  in  a  short 
street  near  the  Gare  du  Nord.  Was  it  the  Rue 
Jessaint?  I  do  not  know,  for  when,  a  year  later, 
I  attempted  to  re-find  this  bal  it  had  disappeared. 
.  .  .  We  could  hear  the  hum  of  the  pipes  for  some 
paces  before  we  turned  the  corner  into  the  street, 
and  never  have  pipes  sounded  in  my  ears  with 
such  a  shrill  significance  of  being  somewhere  they 
ought  not  to  be,  never  but  once,  and  that  was 
when  I  had  heard  the  piper  who  accompanies  the 
dinner  of  the  Governor  of  the  Bahamas  in  Nassau. 
Marching  round  the  porch  of  the  Governor's  Villa 
[136] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


he  played  The  Blue  Bells  of  Scotland  and  God 
Save  the  King,  but,  hearing  the  sound  from  a  dis- 
tance through  the  interstices  of  the  cocoa-palm 
fronds  in  the  hot  tropical  night,  I  could  only  think 
of  a  Hindoo  blowing  the  pipes  in  India,  the  charm- 
ing of  snakes.  .  .  .  So,  as  we  turned  the  corner 
into  the  Rue  Jessaint,  I  seemed  to  catch  a  faint 
glimpse  of  a  scene  on  the  lawn  at  Versailles.  .  .  . 
Louis  XIV  -  -  it  was  the  epoch  of  Cinderella ! 

But  it  wasn't  a  bag-pipe  at  all.  That  we  dis- 
covered when  we  entered  the  room,  after  passing 
through  the  bar  in  the  front.  The  bal  was  con- 
ducted in  a  large  hall  at  the  back  of  the  maison. 
In  the  doorway  lounged  an  agent  de  service,  al- 
ways a  guest  at  one  of  these  functions,  I  found  out 
later.  There  were  rows  of  tables,  long  tables,  with 
long  wooden  benches  placed  between  them.  One 
corner  of  the  floor  was  cleared  —  not  so  large  a 
corner  either  —  for  dancing,  and  on  a  small  plat- 
form sat  the  strangest  looking  youth,  like  Peter 
Pan  never  to  grow  old,  like  the  Monna  Lisa  a  boy 
of  a  thousand  years,  without  emotion  or  expres- 
sion of  any  sort.  He  was  playing  an  accordion ; 
the  bag-pipe,  symbol  of  the  bal,  hung  disused  on 
the  wall  over  his  head.  His  accordion,  manipu- 
lated with  great  skill,  was  augmented  by  sleigh- 
bells  attached  to  his  ankles  in  such  a  manner  that 
[137] 


Aii    Bal    Musette 


a  minimum  of  movement  produced  a  maximum  of 
effect ;  he  further  added  to  the  complexity  of  sound 
and  rhythm  by  striking  a  cymbal  occasionally 
with  one  of  his  feet.  The  music  was  both  rhyth- 
mic and  ordered,  now  a  waltz,  now  a  tune  in  two- 
four  time,  but  never  faster  or  slower,  and  never 
ending  .  .  .  except  in  the  middle  of  each  dance, 
for  a  brief  few  seconds,  while  the  patronne  col- 
lected a  sow  from  each  dancer,  after  which  the 
dance  proceeded.  All  the  time  we  remained  never 
did  the  musician  smile,  except  twice,  once  briefly 
when  I  sent  word  to  him  by  the  waiter  to  order  a 
contamination  and  once,  at  some  length,  when  we 
departed.  On  these  occasions  the  effect  was  al- 
most emotionally  illuminating,  so  inexpressive  was 
the  ordinary  cast  of  his  features.  A  strange  lad ; 
I  like  to  think  of  him  always  sitting  there,  pas- 
sively, playing  the  accordion  and  shaking  his 
sleigh-bells.  He  suggested  a  static  picture,  a 
thing  of  always,  but  I  know  it  is  not  so,  for  even 
the  next  summer  he  had  disappeared  along  with 
the  bal  and  now  he  may  have  been  shot  in  the 
Battle  of  the  Marne  or  he  may  have  murdered  his 
gigolette  and  been  transported  to  one  of  the 
French  penal  colonies.  .  .  .  An  apache,  en  muji- 
cien!  .  .  .  black  cloth  around  his  throat,  hair 
parted  in  the  middle,  velours  trousers;  a  vrai 
[138] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


apache  I  tell  you,  a  cool,  cunning  creature, 
shredded  with  cocaine  and  absinthe,  monotonous  in 
his  virtuosity,  playing  the  accordion.  He  had 
begun  before  we  arrived  and  he  continued  after  we 
left.  I  like  to  think  of  him  as  always  playing, 
but  it  is  not  so.  ... 

As  for  the  dancers,  they  were  of  various  kinds 
and  sorts.  The  women  had  that  air  which  gave 
them  the  stamp  of  a  quarter;  they  wore  loose 
blouses,  tucked  in  plaid  skirts,  or  dark  blue  skirts, 
or  multi-coloured  calico  skirts  (if  you  have  seen 
the  lithographs  of  Steinlen  you  may  reconstruct 
the  picture  with  no  difficulty)  and  they  danced  in 
that  peculiar  fashion  so  much  in  vogue  in  the 
Northern  outskirts  of  Paris.  The  men  seized 
them  tightly  and  they  whirled  to  the  inexorable 
music  when  it  was  a  waltz,  whirled  and  whirled, 
until  one  thought  of  the  Viennese  and  how  they 
become  as  dervishes  and  Japanese  mice  when  one 
plays  Johann  Strauss.  But  in  the  dances  in  two- 
four  time  their  way  was  more  our  way,  something 
between  a  one-step,  a  mattchiche,  and  a  tango, 
with  strange  fascinating  steps  of  their  own  devis- 
ing, a  folk-dance  manner.  .  .  .  Yes,  under  their 
feet,  the  dance  became  a  real  dance  of  the  people 
and,  when  we  entered  into  it,  our  feet  seemed  heavy  \ 
and  our  steps  conventional,  although  we  tried  to 
[139] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


do  what  they  did.  (How  they  did  laugh  at  us!) 
And  the  strange  youth  emphasized  the  effect  of 
folk-dancing  by  playing  old  chansons  de  France 
which  he  mingled  with  his  repertory  of  cafe-con- 
cert airs.  And  there  was  achieved  that  wonderful 
thing  (to  an  artist)  a  mixture  of  genres  —  in- 
triguing one's  curiosity,  awakening  the  most  dor- 
mant interest,  and  inspiring  the  dullest  imagina- 
tion. 

This  was  my  first  night  at  a  bal  miisette  and 
my  last  in  that  year,  for  shortly  afterwards  I  left 
for  Italy  and  in  Italy  one  does  not  dance.  But 
the  next  season  found  me  anxious  to  renew  the  ad- 
venture, to  again  enjoy  the  pleasures  of  the  bal 
musette.  I  have  said  I  was  perhaps  wrong  in  re- 
calling the  street  as  the  Rue  Jessaint,  or  perhaps 
the  old  maison  had  disappeared.  At  any  rate, 
when  I  searched  I  could  not  find  the  bal,  not  even 
the  bar.  So  again  I  appealed  for  help,  this  time 
to  a  chauffeur,  who  drove  me  to  the  opposite  side 
of  the  city,  to  the  quartier  of  the  Holies.  .  .  . 
And  I  was  beginning  to  think  that  the  man  had  mis- 
understood me,  or  was  stupid.  "  He  will  take  me 
to  a  cabaret,  1'Ange  Gabriel  or  " —  and  I  rapidly 
revolved  in  my  mind  the  possibilities  of  this  quar- 
ter where  the  apaclies  come  to  the  surface  to  feel 
the  purse  of  the  tourist,  who  buys  drinks  as  he 
[140] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


listens  to  stories  of  murders,  some  of  which  have 
been  committed,  for  it  is  true  that  some  of  the 
real  apaches  go  there  (I  know  because  my  friend 
Fernand  did  and  it  was  in  1'Ange  Gabriel  that  he 
knocked  all  the  teeth  down  the  throat  of  Ange- 
lique,  sa  gigolette.  You  may  find  the  life  of  these 
creatures  vividly  and  amusingly  described  in  that 
amazing  book  of  Charles-Henry  Hirsch,  "  Le  Tigre 
et  Coquelicot."  It  is  the  only  book  I  have  read 
about  the  apaches  of  modern  Paris  that  is  worth 
its  pages).  But  the  idea  of  1'Ange  Gabriel  was 
not  amusing  to  me  this  evening  and  I  leaned  for- 
ward to  ask  my  chauffeur  if  he  had  it  in  mind  to 
substitute  another  attraction  for  my  desired  bal 
musette.  His  reply  was  reassuring;  it  took  the 
form  of  a  gesture,  the  waving  of  a  hand  towards  a 
small  lighted  globe  depending  over  the  door  of  a 
little  marchand  de  vin.  On  this  globe  was  painted 
in  black  letters  the  single  word,  bal.  We  were  in 
the  narrow  Rue  des  Gravilliers  —  I  was  there  for 
the  first  time  —  and  the  bal  was  the  Bal  des  Grav- 
illiers. 

The  bar  is  so  small,  when  one  enters,  that  there 
is  no  intimation  of  the  really  splendid  aspect  of 
the  dancing  room.  For  here  there  are  two  rooms 
separated  by  the  dancing  floor,  two  halls  filled 
with  tables,  with  long  wooden  benches  between 
[141] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


them.  Benches  also  line  the  walls,  which  are  white 
with  a  grey-blue  frieze;  the  lighting  is  brilliant. 
The  musicians  play  in  a  little  balcony,  and  here 
there  are  two  of  them,  an  accordionist  and  a 
guitarist.  The  performer  on  the  accordion  is  a 
virtuoso;  he  takes  delight  in  winding  florid  orna- 
ment, after  the  manner  of  some  brilliant  singer 
impersonating  Rosina  in  II  Barbiere,  around 
the  melodies  he  performs.  As  in  the  Rue  Jessaint 
a  sou  is  demanded  in  the  middle  of  each  dance. 
But  there  comparison  must  cease,  for  the  life  here 
is  gayer,  more  of  a  character.  The  types  are  of 
the  Hattes.  .  .  .  There  are  strange  exits.  .  .  . 

A  short  woman  enters ;  "  ette  s'avance  en  se 
balanfant  sur  ses  hanches  corrnne  une  pouLiche  du 
haras  de  Cordoue  ";  she  suggests  an  operatic  Car- 
men in  her  swagger.  She  is  slender,  with  short, 
dark  hair,  cropped  a  la  Boutet  de  Monvel,  and  she 
flourishes  a  cigarette,  the  smoke  from  which 
wreathes  upward  and  obscures  —  nay  makes  more 
subtle  —  the  strange  poignancy  of  her  deep  blue 
eyes.  Her  nose  is  of  a  snubness.  It  is  the  mome 
Estelle,  and  as  she  passes  down  the  narrow  aisle, 
between  the  tables,  there  is  a  stir  of  excitement. 
.  .  .  The  men  raise  their  eyes.  .  .  .  Edouard,  le 
petit,  flicks  a  louis  carelessly  between  his  thumb 
and  fore-finger,  with  the  long  dirty  nails,  and  then 
[143] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


passes  it  back  into  his  pocket.  Do  not  mistake 
the  gesture ;  it  is  not  made  to  entice  the  mome,  nor 
is  it  a  sign  of  affluence;  it  is  Edouard's  means  of 
demanding  another  louis  before  the  night  is  up,  if 
it  be  only  a  "  louis  de  dix  francs."  Estelle  looks 
at  him  boldly ;  there  is  no  fear  in  her  eyes ;  you  can 
see  that  she  would  face  death  with  Carmen's  calm 
if  the  Fates  cut  the  thread  to  that  effect.  .  .  . 
The  music  begins  and  Estelle  dances  with  Car- 
mella,  I'Arabe.  Edouard  glowers  and  pulls  his 
little  grey  cap  down  lower.  ...  It  is  a  waltz. 
.  .  .  Suddenly  he  is  on  the  floor  and  Estelle  is 
pressed  close  to  his  body.  .  .  .  Carmella  sits 
down.  She  smiles,  and  presently  she  is  dancing 
with  Jean-Baptiste.  .  .  .  Estelle  and  Edouard  are 
now  whirling,  whirling,  and  all  the  while  his  dark 
eyes  look  down  piercingly  into  her  blue  eyes.  The 
music  stops.  Estelle  fumbles  in  her  stocking  for 
two  sous.  Edouard  lights  a  Maryland. 

There  is  a  newcomer  tonight.  (I  am  talking 
to  the  agent  de  service.)  She  is  of  a  youth  and 
she  is  certainly  from  Brittany.  I  see  her  sitting 
in  a  corner,  waiting  for  something,  trying  to  know. 
"  She  will  learn,"  says  my  friend,  "  She  will  learn 
to  pay  like  the  others."  That  is  the  gros  Pierre 
who  regards  her.  He  twirls  his  moustache  and 
considers,  and  in  the  end  he  lumbers  to  her  and 
[143] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


asks  her  to  dance.  She  is  willing  to  do  so,  but  the 
intensity  of  Pierre  frightens  her,  frightens  and  in- 
trigues. .  .  .  There  is  a  sign  on  the  wall  that  one 
must  not  stamp  one's  feet,  but  no  other  prohibi- 
tion. .  .  .  He  twists  her  finger  purposely  as  they 
whirl  .  .  .  and  whirl.  She  cowers.  Gros  Pierre 
is  very  big  and  strong.  "  T'es  bath,  mome"  I 
hear  him  say,  as  they  pass  me  by.  .  .  .  The  dance 
over,  he  towers  above  her  for  a  brief  second  before 
he  swaggers  out.  .  .  .  Estelle  smiles.  Her  lips 
move  and  she  speaks  quickly  to  Edouard,  le  petit. 
.  .  .  He  does  not  listen.  Why  should  he  listen  to 
his  gigolette?  She  is  wasting  her  time  here  any- 
way. He  becomes  impatient.  .  .  .  Carmella 
smiles  across  the  room  in  a  brief  second  of  chance 
and  Estelle  answers  the  smile.  Carmella  holds  up 
three  fingers  (it  is  now  1.30).  Estelle  nods  her 
head  quickly.  The  musicians  are  always  playing, 
except  in  the  middle  of  the  dance  when  madame,  la 
patronne,  gathers  in  the  sous.  .  .  .  Only  from 
one  she  takes  nothing.  .  .  .  He  is  twenty  and  very 
blonde  and  he  is  dancing  with  Madame.  .  .  .  Be- 
tween dances  she  pays  his  cons  animations.  .  .  . 
Estelle  rises  slowly  and  walks  out  while  Carmella, 
VArabe,  follows  her  with  his  eyes.  Edouard,  le 
petit,  lights  a  Maryland  and  poises  a  louis  between 
his  thumb  and  fore-finger,  the  nails  of  which  are 
[  144  ] 


Au    Bal    Musette 


long  and  dirty.  .  .  .  The  music  is  always  playing. 
.  .  .  The  little  girl  from  Brittany  is  again  alone 
in  the  corner.  There  is  fear  in  her  face.  She  is 
beginning  to  know.  She  summons  her  courage  and 
walks  to  the  door,  on  through.  .  .  .  The  agent  de 
service  twirls  his  moustache  and  points  after  her. 
"  She  soon  will  know."  I  follow.  She  hesitates 
for  a  second  at  the  street  door  and  then  starts 
towards  the  corner.  .  .  .  She  reaches  the  corner 
and  passes  around  it.  ...  I  hear  a  scream  .  .  . 
the  sound  of  running  footsteps  .  .  .  the  beat  of 
a  horse's  hoofs  .  .  .  the  rolling  of  wheels  on  the 
cobble  stones.  .  .  . 

November  11,  1915. 


[146] 


Music  and  Cooking 

Give  me  same  music, —  music,  moody  food 
Of  us  that  trade  in  love." 

Shakespeare's  Cleopatra. 


Music  and  Cooking 


IT  is  my  firm  belief  that  there  is  an  intimate 
relationship  between  the  stomach  and  the  ear, 
the  saucepan  and  the  crotchet,  the  mysteries 
of  Mrs.  Rorer  and  the  mysteries  of  Mme.  Mar- 
chesi.  It  has  even  occurred  to  me  that  one  of  the 
reasons  our  American  composers  are  so  barren  in 
ideas  is  because  as  a  race  we  are  not  interested  in 
cooking  and  eating.  Those  countries  in  which 
music  plays  the  greater  part  in  the  national  life 
are  precisely  those  which  are  the  most  interested  in 
the  culinary  art.  The  food  of  Italy,  the  cooking, 
is  celebrated;  every  peasant  in  that  sunny  land 
sings,  and  the  voices  of  some  Italians  have  rever- 
berated around  the  world.  The  very  melodies  of 
Verdi  and  Rossini  are  inextricably  twined  in  our 
minds  around  memories  of  ravioli  and  zabaglione. 
Vesti  la  Giubba  i  s  spaghetti.  The  composers  of 
these  melodies  and  their  interpreters  alike  cooked, 
ate,  and  drank  with  joy,  and  so  they  composed  and 
sang  with  joy  too.  Men  with  indigestion  may  be 
able  to  write  novels,  but  they  cannot  compose  great 
music.  .  .  .  The  Germans  spend  more  time  eating 
than  the  people  of  any  other  country  (at  least  they 
did  once).  It  is  small  occasion  for  wonder,  there- 
[149] 


Music    and    Cooking 

fore,  that  they  produce  so  many  musicians.  They 
are  always  eating,  mammoth  plates  heaped  high 
with  Bavarian  cabbage,  Koenigsberger  Klopps, 
Hasenpfeffer,  noodles,  sauerkraut,  Wiener  Schnit- 
zel ...  drinking  seidels  of  beer.  They  escort 
sausages  with  them  to  the  opera.  All  the  women 
have  their  skirts  honeycombed  with  capacious 
pockets,  in  which  they  carry  substantial  lunches  to 
eat  while  Isolde  is  deceiving  King  Mark.  Why, 
the  very  principle  of  German  music  is  based  on  a 
theory  of  well-fed  auditors.  The  voluptuous 
scores  of  Richard  Wagner,  Richard  Strauss,  Max 
Schillings  and  Co.  were  not  written  for  skinny,  ill- 
nourished  wights.  Even  Beethoven  demands  flesh 
and  bone  of  his  hearers.  The  music  of  Bach  is 
directly  aimed  against  the  doctrine  of  asceticism. 
"  The  German  capacity  for  feeling  emotion  in 
music  has  developed  to  the  same  extent  as  the 
capacity  of  the  German  stomach  for  containing 
food,"  writes  Ernest  Newman,  "  but  in  neither  the 
one  case  nor  the  other  has  there  been  a  correspond- 
ing development  in  refinement  of  perceptions. 
German  sentimental  music  is  not  quite  as  gross  as 
German  food  and  German  feeding,  but  it  comes 
very  near  to  it  sometimes.  .  .  .  '  The  Germans  do 
not  taste,'  said  Montaigne,  '  they  gulp.'  As  with 
their  food,  so  with  the  emotions  of  their  music. 
[ISO] 


Music    and    Cooking 

So  long  as  they  get  them  in  sufficient  mass,  of  the 
traditional  quality,  and  with  the  traditional  pun- 
gent seasoning,  they  are  content  to  leave  piquancy 
and  variety  of  effect  to  others."  .  .  .  Once  in 
Munich  in  a  second  storey  window  of  the  Bayer- 
ischebank  I  saw  a  small  boy,  about  ten  years  old, 
sitting  outside  on  the  sill,  washing  the  panes  of 
glass.  Opposite  him  on  the  same  sill  a  dachshund 
reposed  on  her  paws,  regarding  her  master  affec- 
tionately. Between  the  two  stood  a  half-filled 
toby  of  foaming  Lowenbrau,  which,  from  time  to 
time,  the  lad  raised  to  his  lips,  quaffing  deep 
draughts.  And  when  he  set  the  pot  down  he  whis- 
tled the  first  subject  of  Beethoven's  Fifth  Sym- 
phony. On  Sunday  afternoons,  in  the  gardens 
which  invariably  surround  the  Munich  breweries, 
the  happy  mothers,  who  gather  to  listen  to  the 
band  play  while  they  drink  beer,  frequently  replen- 
ish the  empty  nursing  bottles  of  their  offspring  at 
the  taps  from  which  flows  the  deep  brown  beverage. 
.  .  .  The  food  of  the  French  is  highly  artificial, 
delicately  prepared  and  served,  and  flavoured  with 
infinite  art:  vol  au  vent  a  la  reine  and  Massenet, 
petits  pots  a  Vetwvee  and  Gounod,  oeuf  Ste.  Clo- 
tilde  and  Cesar  Franck,  all  strike  the  tongue'  and 
the  ear  quite  pleasantly.  Des  Esseintes  and  his 
liqueur  symphony  were  the  inventions  of  a  French- 
[151] 


Music    and    Cooking 

man.  .  .  .  Hungarian  goulash  and  Hungarian 
rhapsodies  are  certainly  designed  to  be  taken  in 
conjunction.  .  .  .  Russian  music  tastes  of  kascha 
and  bortsch  and  vodka.  The  happy,  hearty  eaters 
of  Russia,  the  drunken,  sodden  drinkers  of  Rus- 
sia are  reflected  in  the  scores  of  Boris  Godiinow 
and  Petrouclika.  ...  In  England  we  find  that  the 
great  English  meat  pasties  and  puddings  ap- 
peared in  the  same  century  with  the  immortal  Pur- 
cell.  .  .  .  But  in  America  we  import  our  cooks 
.  .  .  and  our  music.  As  a  race  we  do  not  like  to 
cook.  We  scarcely  like  to  eat.  We  certainly  do 
not  enjoy  eating.  We  will  never  have  a  national 
music  until  we  have  national  dishes  and  national 
drinks  and  until  we  like  good  food.  It  is  sig- 
nificant that  our  national  drinks  at  present  are 
mixed  drinks,  the  ingredients  of  which  are  foreign. 
It  is  doubly  significant  that  that  section  of  the 
country  which  produces  chicken  a  la  Maryland, 
corn  bread,  beaten  biscuit,  mint  juleps,  and  New 
Orleans  fizzes  has  furnished  us  with  the  best  of 
such  music  as  we  can  boast.  Maine  has  offered  us 
no  Swwanee  River;  we  owe  no  Swing  Low,  Sweet 
Chariot  to  Nebraska.  The  best  of  our  ragtime 
composers  are  Jews,  a  race  which  regards  eating 
and  cooking  of  sufficient  importance  to  include 
[152] 


Music    and    Cooking 

rules  for  the  preparation  and  disposition  of  food 
in  its  religious  tenets. 

Most  musicians  and  those  who  enjoy  listening  to 
music,  like  to  eat  (this  does  not  mean  that  people 
who  like  to  eat  always  desire  to  listen  to  music  at 
the  same  time,  but  nowadays  one  has  little  choice 
in  the  matter)  ;  what  is  more  pregnant,  most  of 
them  like  to  cook.  We  may  include  even  the  music 
critics,  one  of  whom  (Henry  T.  Finck)  has  writ- 
ten a  book  about  such  matters.  The  others  eat 
.  .  .  and  expand.  James  Huneker  devotes  sixteen 
pages  of  "  The  New  Cosmopolis  "  to  the  "  maw  of 
the  monster."  And  as  H.  L.  Mencken  has  pointed 
out,  "  The  Pilsner  motive  runs  through  the  book 
from  cover  to  cover."  Dinners  are  constantly 
being  given  for  the  musicians  and  critics  to  meet 
and  talk  over  thirteen  courses  with  wine.  You 
may  read  Mr.  Krehbiel's  glowing  accounts  of  the 
dinner  given  to  Adelina  Patti  (a  dinner  referred 
to  in  Joseph  Hergesheimer's  lyric  novel,  "  The 
Three  Black  Penny s  ")  on  the  occasion  of  her 
twenty-fifth  anniversary  as  a  singer,  of  the  din- 
ner to  Marcella  Sembrich  to  mark  her  retirement 
from  the  opera  stage,  and  of  a  dinner  to  Teresa 
Carreno  when  she  proposed  a  toast  to  her  three 
husbands.  ...  Go  to  the  opera  house  and  observe 
[153] 


Music    and    Cooking 

the  lady  singers,  with  their  ample  bosoms  and 
their  broad  hips,  the  men  with  their  expansive 
paunches  .  .  .  and  use  your  imagination.  Why 
is  it,  when  a  singer  is  interviewed  for  a  news- 
paper, that  she  invariably  finds  herself  tired  of 
hotel  food  and  wants  an  apartment  of  her  own, 
where  she  can  cook  to  her  stomach's  content? 
Why  are  the  musical  journals  and  the  Sunday 
supplements  of  the  newspapers  always  publishing 
pictures  of  contralti  with  their  sleeves  rolled  back 
to  the  elbows,  their  Poiret  gowns  (cunningly  and 
carefully  exhibited  nevertheless)  covered  with 
aprons,  baking  bread,  turning  omelettes,  or  pre- 
paring clam  broth  Uncle  Sam?  You,  my  reader, 
have  surely  seen  these  pictures,  but  it  has  perhaps 
not  occurred  to  you  to  conjure  up  a  reason  for 
them. 

Edgar  Saltus  says :  "  A  perfect  dinner  should 
resemble  a  concert.  As  the  morceaux  succeed  each 
other,  so,  too,  should  the  names  of  the  composers." 
Few  dinners  in  New  York  may  be  regarded  as  con- 
certs and  still  fewer  restaurants  may  be  looked 
upon  as  concert  halls,  except,  unfortunately,  in 
the  literal  sense.  However,  if  you  can  find  a  res- 
taurant where  opera  singers  and  conductors  eat 
you  may  be  sure  it  is  a  good  one.  Huneker  de- 
scribes the  old  Lienau's,  where  William  Steinway, 
[154] 


Music    and    Cooking 

Anton  Seidl,  Theodore  Thomas,  Scharwenka, 
Joseffy,  Lilli  Lehmann,  Max  Heinrich,  and  Victor 
Herbert  used  to  gather.  Follow  Alfred  Hertz  and 
you  will  be  in  excellent  company  in  a  double  sense. 
Then  watch  him  consume  a  plateful  of  Viennese 
pastry.  If  you  have  ever  seen  Emmy  Destinn  or 
Feodor  Chaliapine  eat  you  will  feel  that  justice  has 
been  done  to  a  meal.  I  once  sat  with  the  Russian 
bass  for  twelve  hours,  all  of  which  time  he  was 
eating  or  drinking.  He  began  with  six  plates  of 
steaming  onion  soup  (cooked  with  cheese  and 
toast).  The  old  New  Year's  eve  festivities  at  the 
Gadski-Tauschers'  resembled  the  storied  ban- 
quets of  the  middle  ages.  .  .  .  Boars'  heads,  meat 
pies,  salade  macedoine,  coeur  de  palmier,  hollan- 
daise  were  washed  down  with  magnums  and  quarts 
of  Irroy  brut,  1900,  Pol  Roger,  Chambertin, 
graceful  Bohemian  crystal  goblets  of  Lieb- 
fraumilch  and  Johannisberger  Schloss-Auslese. 
Mary  Garden  once  sent  a  jewelled  gift  to  the  chef 
at  the  Ritz-Carlton  in  return  for  a  superb  fish 
sauce  which  he  had  contrived  for  her.  H.  E. 
Krehbiel  says  that  Brignoli  "  probably  ate  as  no 
tenor  ever  ate  before  or  since  —  ravenously  as  a 
Prussian  dragoon  after  a  fast."  Peche  Melba  has 
become  a  stable  article  on  many  menus  in  many 
cities  in  many  lands.  Agnes  G.  Murphy,  in  her 
[155] 


Music    and    Cooking 

biography  of  Mme.  Mclba,  says  that  one  day  the 
singer,  Joachim,  and  a  party  of  friends  stopped 
at  a  peasant's  cottage  near  Bergamo,  where  they 
were  regaled  with  such  delicious  macaroni  that 
Melba  persuaded  her  friends  to  return  another  day 
and  wait  while  the  peasant  taught  her  the  exact 
method  of  preparing  the  dish.  In  at  least  one 
New  York  restaurant  oeuf  Toscanini  is  to  be  found 
on  the  bill.  I  have  heard  Olive  Fremstad  com- 
plain of  the  cooking  in  this  hotel  in  Paris,  or  that 
hotel  in  New  York,  or  the  other  hotel  in  Munich, 
and  when  she  found  herself  in  an  apartment  of  her 
own  she  immediately  set  about  to  cook  a  few  spe- 
cial dishes  for  herself. 

Two  musicians  I  know  not  only  keep  restaurants 
in  New  York,  but  actually  prepare  the  dinners 
themselves.  One  of  them  is  at  the  same  time  a 
singer  in  the  Metropolitan  Opera  Company. 
Have  you  seen  Bernard  Begue  standing  before  his 
cook  stove  preparing  food  for  his  patrons?  His 
huge  form,  clad  in  white,  viewed  through  the 
open  doorway  connecting  the  dining  room  with  the 
kitchen,  almost  conceals  the  great  stove,  but  oc- 
casionally you  can  catch  sight  of  the  pots  and 
pans,  the  casseroles  of  pot-au-feu,  the  roasting 
chicken,  the  filets  of  sole,  all  the  ingredients  of  a 
dinner,  cuisine  bourgeoise  .  .  .  and  after  dining, 
[156] 


Music    and    Cooking 

you    can    hear    Begue    sing    the    Uncle-priest    in 
Madama  Butterfly  at  the  Opera  House. 

Or  have  you  seen  Giacomo  (and  have  not 
Meyerbeer  and  Puccini  been  bearers  of  this 
name?)  Pogliani  turning  from  the  spaghetti  theme 
chromatically  to  that  of  the  risotto,  the  most  suc- 
culent and  appetizing  risotto  to  be  tasted  this  side 
of  Bonvecchiati's  in  Venice  ...  or  the  polenta 
with  -fwnghi.  .  .  .  But,  best  of  all,  the  roasts,  and 
were  it  not  that  the  Prince  Troubetskoy  is  a 
vegetarian  you  would  fancy  that  he  came  to 
Pogliani's  for  these  viands.  And  it  must  not  be 
forgotten  that  this  supreme  cook  is  —  or  was  — 
a  bassoon  player  of  the  first  rank,  that  he  is  a 
graduate  of  the  Milan  Conservatory.  The  bas- 
soon is  a  difficult  instrument.  It  is  sometimes 
called  the  "  comedian  of  the  orchestra,"  but  there 
are  few  who  can  play  it  at  all,  still  fewer  who  can 
play  it  well.  Bassoonists  are  highly  paid  and 
they  are  in  demand.  Walter  Damrosch  used  to 
say  that  when  he  was  engaging  a  bassoon  player 
he  would  ask  him  to  play  a  passage  from  the 
bassoon  part  in  Scheherazade.  If  he  could  play 
that,  he  could  play  anything  else  written  for  his 
instrument.  Pogliani  gave  up  the  bassoon  for  the 
fork,  spoon,  and  saucepan.  Like  Prospero  he 
buried  his  magic  wand  and  in  Viafora's  cartoon 
[157] 


Music    and    Cooking 

the  instrument  lies  idle  in  the  cobwebs. 
Charles  Santley's  "  Reminiscences  "  and  "  Stu- 
dent and  Singer  "  are  full  of  references  to  food : 
"  ox-hearts,  stuffed  with  onions,"  "  a  joint  of 
meat,  well  cooked,  with  a  bright  brown  crust  which 
prevented  the  juices  escaping,"  "  a  splendid  shoul- 
der of  mutton,  a  picture  to  behold,  and  a  peas  pud- 
ding" and  "  whaffles  "  are  a  few  of  the  dishes  re- 
ferred to  with  enthusiasm.  In  America  a  news- 
paper gravely  informed  its  readers  that  "  Santley 
says  squash  pie  is  the  best  thing  to  sing  on  he 
knows !  "  Santley  was  a  true  pantophagist,  but 
he  was  worsted  in  his  first  encounter  with  the 
American  oyster :  "  I  had  often  heard  of  the  cele- 
brated American  oyster,  which  half  a  dozen  people 
had  tried  to  swallow  without  success,  and  was 
anxious  to  learn  if  the  story  were  founded  on  fact. 
Cummings  conducted  me  to  a  cellar  in  Broadway, 
where,  upon  his  order,  a  waiter  produced  two 
plates,  on  which  were  half  a  dozen  objects,  about 
the  size  and  shape  of  the  sole  of  an  ordinary  lady's 
shoe,  on  each  of  which  lay  what  appeared  to  me 
to  be  a  very  bilious  tongue,  accompanied  by 
smaller  plates  containing  shredded  white  cabbage 
raw.  I  did  not  admire  the  look  of  the  repast,  but 
I  never  discard  food  on  account  of  looks.  I  took 
up  an  oyster  and  tried  to  get  it  into  my  mouth, 
[158] 


Music    and    Cooking 

but  it  was  of  no  use ;  I  tried  to  ram  it  in  with  the 
butt-end  of  the  fork,  but  all  to  no  purpose,  and  I 
had  to  drop  it,  and,  to  the  great  indignation  of  the 
waiter,  paid  and  left  the  oysters  for  him  to  dis- 
pose of  as  he  might  like  best.  I  presume  those 
oysters  are  eaten,  but  I  cannot  imagine  by  whom ; 
I  have  rarely  seen  a  mouth  capable  of  the  neces- 
sary expansion.  I  soon  found  out  that  there 
were  plenty  of  delicious  oysters  in  the  States 
within  the  compass  of  ordinary  jaws." 

J.  H.  Mapleson  says  in  his  "  Memoirs  "  that  at 
the  Opera  at  Lodi,  where  he  made  his  debut  as  a 
tenor,  refreshments  of  all  kinds  were  served  to  the 
audience  between  the  acts  and  every  box  was  fur- 
nished with  a  little  kitchen  for  cooking  macaroni 
and  baking  or  frying  pastry.  The  wine  of  the 
country  was  drunk  freely,  not  out  of  glasses,  but 
"  in  classical  fashion  —  from  bowls."  Mapleson 
also  tells  us  that  Del  Puente  was  a  "  very  tolerable 
cook."  On  one  trying  occasion  he  prepared 
macaroni  for  his  impress ario.  Michael  Kelly  de- 
clares that  the  sight  of  Signor  St.  Giorgio  entering 
a  fruit  shop  to  eat  peaches,  nectarines,  and  a  pine- 
apple, was  really  what  stimulated  him  to  study  for 
a  career  on  the  stage.  "  While  my  mouth  watered, 
I  asked  myself  why,  if  I  assiduously  studied  music, 
I  should  not  be  able  to  earn  money  enough  to 
[159] 


Music    and    Cooking 

lounge  about  in  fruit-shops,  and  cat  peaches  and 
pineapples  as  well  as  Signor  St.  Giorgio.  .  .  ." 

Lillian  Russell  is  a  good  cook.  I  can  recom- 
mend her  recipe  for  the  preparation  of  mush- 
rooms :  "  Put  a  lump  of  butter  in  a  chafing  dish 
(or  a  saucepan)  and  a  slice  of  Spanish  onion  and 
the  mushrooms  minus  the  stems;  let  them  simmer 
until  they  are  all  deliciously  tender  and  the  juice 
has  run  from  them  —  about  twenty  minutes  should 
be  enough  —  then  add  a  cupful  of  cream  and  let 
this  boil.  As  a  last  touch  squeeze  in  the  juice  of 
a  lemon."  When  Luisa  Tetrazzini  was  going  mad 
with  a  flute  in  our  vicinity  she  varied  the  monotony 
of  her  life  by  sending  pages  of  her  favourite  recipes 
to  the  Sunday  yellow  press.  Unfortunately,  I 
neglected  to  make  a  collection  of  this  series.  A 
passion  for  cooking  caused  the  death  of  Naldi,  a 
buffo  singer  of  the  early  Nineteenth  Century. 
Michael  Kelly  tells  the  story :  "  His  ill  stars  took 
him  to  Paris,  where,  one  day,  just  before  dinner, 
at  his  friend  Garcia's  house,  in  the  year  1821,  he 
was  showing  the  method  of  cooking  by  steam,  with 
a  portable  apparatus  for  that  purpose;  unfor- 
tunately, in  consequence  of  some  derangement  of 
the  machinery,  an  explosion  took  place,  by  which 
he  was  instantaneously  killed."  Almost  everybody 
knows  some  story  or  other  about  a  virtuoso, 
[160] 


Music    and    Cooking 

trapped  into  dining  and  asked  to  perform  after 
dinner  by  his  host.  Kelly  relates  one  of  the  first : 
"  Fischer,  the  great  oboe  player,  whose  minuet 
was  then  all  the  rage  .  .  .  being  very  much 
pressed  by  a  nobleman  to  sup  with  him  after  the 
opera,  declined  the  invitation,  saying  that  he  was 
usually  much  fatigued,  and  made  it  a  rule  never  to 
go  out  after  the  evening's  performance.  The 
noble  lord  would,  however,  take  no  denial,  and  as- 
sured Fischer  that  he  did  not  ask  him  profes- 
sionally, but  merely  for  the  gratification  of  his  so- 
ciety and  conversation.  Thus  urged  and  encour- 
aged, he  went;  he  had  not,  however,  been  many 
minutes  in  the  house  of  the  consistent  nobleman, 
before  his  lordship  approached  him,  and  said,  *  I 
hope,  Mr.  Fischer,  you  have  brought  your  oboe  in 
your  pocket.' — '  No,  my  Lord,'  said  Fischer,  '  my 
oboe  never  sups.'  He  turned  on  his  heel,  and  in- 
stantly left  the  house,  and  no  persuasion  could 
ever  induce  him  to  return  to  it."  You  perhaps 
have  heard  rumours  that  Giuseppe  Campanari  pre- 
fers spaghetti  to  Mozart,  especially  when  he  cooks 
it  himself.  When  this  baritone  was  a  member  of 
the  Metropolitan  Opera  Company  his  parapher- 
nalia for  preparing  his  favourite  food  went  every- 
where with  him  on  tour.  Heinrich  Conried  (or 
was  it  Maurice  Grau?)  once  tried  to  take  ad- 
[161] 


Music    and    Cooking 

vantage  of  this  weakness,  according  to  a  story 
often  related  by  the  late  Algernon  St.  John  Brenon. 
Campanari  was  to  appear  as  Kothner  in  Die  Meis- 
tersinger,  a  character  with  no  singing  to  do  after 
the  first  act,  although  he  appears  in  the  procession 
in  the  third  act.  The  singer  told  his  impressario 
that  he  saw  no  reason  why  he  should  remain  to  the 
end  and  explained  that  he  would  leave  his  costume 
for  a  chorus  man  to  don  to  represent  him  in  the 
final  episode.  "What  would  the  Master  say?" 
demanded  Conried,  wringing  his  hands.  "  Would 
he  approve  of  such  a  proceeding?  No.  That 
would  not  be  truth !  That  would  not  be  art ! " 
Campanari  was  obdurate.  The  Herr  Direktor  be- 
came reflective.  He  was  silent  for  a  moment  and 
then  he  continued :  "  If  you  will  stay  for  the  last 
act  you  will  find  in  your  room  a  little  supper, 
a  bottle  of  wine,  and  a  box  of  cigars,  which  you 
may  consume  while  you  are  waiting."  In  sooth 
when  Campanari  entered  his  dressing  room  after 
the  first  act  of  Wagner's  comic  opera  he  found  that 
his  director  had  kept  his  word.  .  .  .  The  baritone 
ate  the  supper,  drank  the  wine,  put  the  cigars  in 
his  pocket  .  .  .  and  went  home ! 

If  some  singers  are  good  cooks  it  does  not  fol- 
low that  all  good  cooks  are  singers.     Benjamin 
Lumley,  in  his  "  Reminiscences  of  the  Opera,"  tells 
[162] 


Music    and    Cooking 

the  sad  story  of  the  Countess  of  Cannazaro's  cook, 
which  should  serve  as  a  lesson  to  housemaids  who 
are  desirous  of  becoming  moving  picture  stars. 
"  This  worthy  man,  excellent  no  doubt  as  a  chef, 
took  it  into  his  head  that  he  was  a  vocalist  of  the 
highest  order,  and  that  he  only  wanted  oppor- 
tunity to  earn  musical  distinction.  His  strange 
fancy  came  to  the  knowledge  of  Rubini,  and  it  was 
arranged  that  a  performance  should  take  place  in 
the  morning,  in  which  the  cook's  talent  should  be 
fairly  tested.  Certainly  every  chance  was  af- 
forded him.  Not  only  was  he  encouraged  by 
Rubini  and  Lablache  (whose  gravity  on  the  occa- 
sion was  wonderful),  but  by  a  few  others,  Costa 
included,  as  instrumentalists.  The  failure  was 
miserable,  ridiculous,  as  everybody  expected." 
Frederick  Crowest  describes  a  certain  Count  Cas- 
tel  de  Maria  who  had  a  spit  that  played  tunes, 
"  and  so  regulated  and  indicated  the  condition  of 
whatever  was  hung  upon  it  to  roast.  By  a  sin- 
gular mechanical  contrivance  this  wonderful  spit 
would  strike  up  an  appropriate  tune  whenever  a 
joint  had  hung  sufficiently  long  on  its  particular 
roast.  Thus,  Oh!  the  roast  beef  of  Old  England, 
when  a  sirloin  had  turned  and  hung  its  appointed 
time.  At  another  air,  a  leg  of  mutton,  a  V  Ang- 
laise  would  be  found  excellent ;  while  some  other 
[163] 


Music    and    Cooking 

tune  would  indicate  that  a  fowl  a  la  Flamande  was 
cooked  to  a  nicety  and  needed  removal  from  the 
fowl  roast." 

To  Crowest,  too,  I  am  indebted  for  a  list  of 
beverages  and  eatables  which  certain  singers  held 
in  superstitious  awe  as  capable  of  refreshing  their 
voices.  Formes  swore  by  a  pot  of  good  porter 
and  Wachtel  is  said  to  have  trusted  to  the  yolk  of 
an  egg  beaten  up  with  sugar  to  make  sure  of  his 
high  Cs.  The  Swedish  tenor,  Labatt,  declared 
that  two  salted  cucumbers  gave  the  voice  the  true 
metallic  ring.  Walter  drank  cold  black  coffee 
during  a  performance;  Southeim  took  snuff  and 
cold  lemonade ;  Steger,  beer ;  Niemann,  cham- 
pagne, slightly  warmed,  (Huneker  once  saw  Nie- 
mann drinking  cocktails  from  a  beer  glass;  he 
sang  Siegmund  at  the  opera  the  next  night) ; 
Tichatschek,  mulled  claret;  Riibgam  drank  mead; 
Nachbaur  ate  bonbons  ;  Arabanek  believed  in  Gam- 
poldskirchner  wine.  Mile.  Brann-Brini  took  beer 
and  cafe  au  lait,  but  she  also  firmly  believed  in 
champagne  and  would  never  dare  venture  the  great 
duet  in  the  fourth  act  of  Les  Huguenots  without  a 
bottle  of  Moet  Cremant  Rose.  Giardini  being 
asked  his  opinion  of  Banti,  previous  to  her  arrival 
in  England,  said :  "  She  is  the  first  singer  in  Italy 
and  drinks  a  bottle  of  wine  every  day."  Malibran 
[164] 


Music    and    Cooking 

believed  in  the  efficacy  of  porter.  She  made  her 
last  appearances  in  opera  in  Balfe's  Maid  of  Artois 
during  the  fall  of  1836  in  London.  On  the  first 
night  she  was  in  anything  but  good  physical  con- 
dition and  the  author  of  "  Musical  Recollections 
of  the  Last  Half-Century  "  tells  how  she  pulled 
herself  through :  "  She  remembered  that  an  im- 
mense trial  awaited  her  in  the  finale  of  the  third 
act ;  and  finding  her  strength  giving  way,  she  sent 
for  Mr.  Balfe  and  Mr.  Bunn,  and  told  them  that 
unless  they  did  as  they  were  bid,  after  all  the  pre- 
vious success,  the  end  might  result  in  failure ;  but 
she  said,  '  Manage  to  let  me  have  a  pot  of  porter 
somehow  or  other  before  I  have  to  sing,  and  I  will 
get  you  an  encore  which  will  bring  down  the  house.' 
How  to  manage  this  was  difficult ;  for  the  scene  was 
so  set  that  it  seemed  scarcely  possible  to  hand  her 
up  '  the  pewter '  without  its  being  witnessed  by  the 
audience.  After  much  consultation,  Malibran 
having  been  assured  that  her  wish  should  be  ful- 
filled, it  was  arranged  that  the  pot  of  porter 
should  be  handed  up  to  her  through  a  trap  in  the 
stage  at  the  moment  when  Jules  had  thrown  him- 
self on  her  body,  supposing  that  life  had  fled ;  and 
Mr.  Templeton  was  drilled  into  the  manner  in 
which  he  should  so  manage  to  conceal  the  neces- 
sary arrangement,  that  the  audience  would  never 
[165] 


Music    and    Cooking 

suspect  what  was  going  on.  At  the  right  moment 
a  friendly  hand  put  the  foaming  pewter  through 
the  stage,  to  be  swallowed  at  a  draught,  and  success 
was  won!  .  .  .  Malibran,  however,  had  not  over- 
estimated her  own  strength.  She  knew  that  it 
wanted  but  this  fillip  to  carry  her  through.  She 
had  resolved  to  have  an  encore,  and  she  had  it,  in 
such  a  fashion  as  made  the  roof  of  *  Old  Drury  ' 
ring  as  it  had  never  rung  before.  On  the  repeti- 
tion of  the  opera  and  afterwards,  a  different  ar- 
rangement of  the  stage  was  made,  and  a  property 
calabash  containing  a  pot  of  porter  was  used ;  but 
although  the  same  result  was  constantly  won,  Mali- 
bran  always  said  it  was  not  half  so  '  nice,'  nor  did 
her  anything  like  the  good  it  would  have  done  if 
she  could  only  have  had  it  out  of  the  pewter." 
Clara  Louise  Kellogg  in  her  very  lively  "  Mem- 
oirs "  publishes  a  similar  tale  of  another  singer : 
"  It  was  told  of  Grisi  that  when  she  was  growing 
old  and  severe  exertion  told  on  her  she  always, 
after  her  fall  as  Lucrezia  Borgia,  drank  a  glass  of 
beer  sent  up  to  her  through  the  floor,  lying  with 
her  back  half  turned  to  the  audience."  Miss  Kel- 
logg complains  of  the  breaths  of  the  tenors  she 
sang  with :  "  Stigelli  usually  exhaled  an  aroma  of 
lager  beer ;  while  the  good  Mazzoleni  invariably  ate 
from  one  to  two  pounds  of  cheese  the  day  he  was  to 
[166] 


Music    and    Cooking 

sing.  He  said  it  strengthened  his  voice.  Many 
of  them  affected  garlic."  It  is  necessary,  of 
course,  that  a  singer  should  know  what  foods 
agree  with  him.  He  must  keep  himself  in  excel- 
lent physical  condition :  small  wonder  that  many 
artists  are  superstitious  in  this  regard. 

Charles  Santley,  who  was  so  fond  of  eating  and 
drinking  himself,  offers  some  excellent  advice 
on  the  subject  in  "  Student  and  Singer  ":  "  How 
the  voice  is  produced  or  where,  except  that  it  is 
through  the  passage  of  the  throat,  is  unimpor- 
tant ;  it  is  reasonable  to  say  that  the  passage  must 
be  kept  clear,  otherwise  the  sound  proceeding  from 
it  will  not  be  clear.  I  have  known  many  instances 
of  singers  undergoing  very  disagreeable  opera- 
tions on  their  throats  for  chronic  diseases  of  va- 
rious descriptions ;  now,  my  observation  and  ex- 
perience assure  me  that,  in  ninety-nine  cases  out 
of  a  hundred,  the  root  of  the  evil  is  chronic  in- 
attention to  food  and  raiment.  It  is  a  common 
thing  to  hear  a  singer  say,  '  I  never  touch  such- 
and-such  food  on  the  days  I  sing.'  My  dear 
young  friend,  unless  you  are  an  absolute  idiot, 
you  would  not  partake  of  anything  on  the  days 
you  sing  which  might  disagree  with  you,  or  over- 
tax your  digestive  powers ;  it  is  on  the  days  you 
do  not  sing  you  ought  more  particularly  to  exer- 
[167] 


Music    and    Cooking 

cise  your  judgment  and  self-denial.  I  do  not  of- 
fer the  pinched-up  pilgarlic  who  dines  off  a  wiz- 
ened apple  and  a  crust  of  bread  as  a  model  for 
imitation ;  at  the  same  time,  I  warn  you  seriously 
against  following  the  example  of  the  gobbling 
glutton  who  swallows  every  dish  that  tempts  his 
palate." 

Rossini,  after  he  had  composed  Guillaume  Tell, 
retired.  He  was  thirty-seven,  a  man  in  perfect 
health,  and  he  lived  thirty-nine  years  longer,  to 
the  age  of  seventy-six,  yet  he  never  wrote  another 
opera,  hardly  indeed  did  he  dip  his  pen  in  ink  at 
all.  These  facts  have  seriously  disconcerted  his 
biographers,  who  are  at  a  loss  to  assign  reasons 
for  his  actions.  W.  F.  Apthorp  gives  us  an  in- 
genious explanation  in  "  The  Opera  Past  and 
Present."  He  says  that  after  Tell  Rossini's  pride 
would  not  allow  him  to  return  to  his  earlier  Italian 
manner,  while  the  hard  work  needed  to  produce 
more  TeUs  was  more  than  his  laziness  could  stom- 
ach. .  .  .  Perhaps,  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  Rossini  did  not  retire  to  his  library  or  his 
music  room,  but  to  his  kitchen.  The  simple  ex- 
planation is  that  he  preferred  cooking  to  compos- 
ing, a  fact  easy  to  believe  (I  myself  vastly  prefer 
cooking  to  writing).  He  could  cook  risotto  bet- 
ter than  any  one  else  he  knew.  He  was  dubbed  a 
[168] 


Music    and    Cooking 

"  hippopotamus  in  trousers,"  and  for  six  years  be- 
fore he  died  he  could  not  see  his  toes,  he  was  so  fat. 
Sir  Arthur  Sullivan  relates  an  anecdote  which 
shows  that  Rossini  was  conscious  of  his  grossness. 
Once  in  Paris  Sullivan  introduced  Chorley  to  Ros- 
sini, when  the  Italian  said,  "  Je  vois,  avec  plaisir, 
que  monsieur  n'a  pas  de  venire"  Chorley  indeed 
was  noticeably  slender.  Rossini  could  write  more 
easily,  so  his  biographers  tell  us,  when  he  was  under 
the  influence  of  champagne  or  some  light  wine. 
His  provision  merchant  once  begged  him  for  an 
autographed  portrait.  The  composer  gave  it  to 
him  with  the  inscription,  "  To  my  stomach's  best 
friend."  The  tradesman  used  this  souvenir  as  an 
advertisement  and  largely  increased  his  business 
thereby,  as  such  a  testimonial  from  such  an  ac- 
knowledged epicure  had  a  very  definite  value.  J. 
B.  Weckerlin  asserts  that  when  Rossini  dined  at 
the  Rothschild's  he  first  went  to  the  kitchen  to  pay 
his  respects  to  the  chef,  to  look  over  the  menu,  and 
even  to  discuss  the  various  dishes,  after  which  he 
ascended  to  the  drawing  room  to  greet  the  family 
of  the  rich  banker.  Mme.  Alboni  told  Weckerlin 
that  Rossini  had  dedicated  a  piece  of  music  to  the 
Rothschild's  chef. 

Anfossi,  we  are  informed,  could  compose  only 
when  he  was   surrounded  by   smoking  fowls   and 

[  169  ] 


Music    and    Cooking 

Bologna  sausages ;  their  fumes  seemed  to  inflame 
his  imagination,  to  feed  his  muse;  his  brain  was 
stimulated  first  through  his  nose  and  then  through 
his  stomach.  When  Gluck  wrote  music  he  betook 
himself  to  the  open  fields,  accompanied  by  at  least 
two  bottles  of  champagne.  Salieri  told  Michael 
Kelly  that  a  comic  opera  of  Gluck's  being  per- 
formed at  the  Elector  Palatine's  theatre,  at 
Schwetzingen,  his  Electoral  Highness  was  struck 
with  the  music,  and  inquired  who  had  composed 
it;  on  being  informed  that  he  was  an  honest  Ger- 
man who  loved  old  wme,  his  Highness  immediately 
ordered  him  a  tun  of  Hock.  Beethoven,  on  the 
contrary,  seems  to  have  fed  on  his  thoughts  occa- 
sionally, although  there  is  evidence  that  he  was  not 
only  a  good  eater  but  also  a  good  cook  (the 
mothers  of  both  Beethoven  and  Schubert  were 
cooks  in  domestic  service).  There  is  a  story  re- 
lated of  him  that  about  the  time  he  was  compos- 
ing the  Sixth  Symphony  he  walked  into  a  Viennese 
restaurant  and  ordered  dinner.  While  it  was 
being  prepared,  he  became  involved  in  thought, 
and  when  the  waiter  returned  to  serve  him,  he 
said :  "  Thank  you,  I  have  dined !  "  laid  the  price 
of  the  dinner  on  the  table,  and  took  his  departure. 
Gretry,  too,  lost  his  appetite  when  he  was  compos- 
ing. There  are  numerous  references  to  eating  and 
[170] 


Music    and    Cooking 

drinking  in  Mendelssohn's  letters.  His  particu- 
lar preferences,  according  to  Sir  George  Grove, 
were  for  rice  milk  and  cherry  pie.  Dussek  was  a 
famous  eater,  and  it  is  said  that  his  ruling  passion 
eventually  killed  him.  His  patron,  the  Prince  of 
Benevento,  paid  the  composer  eight  hundred  na- 
poleons a  year,  with  a  free  table  for  three  per- 
sons, at  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  one  person 
usually  presided.  A  musical  historian  tells  us  that 
in  the  summer  of  1797  he  was  dining  with  three 
friends  at  the  Ship  Tavern  in  Greenwich,  when 
the  waiter  came  and  laid  a  cloth  for  one  person  at 
the  next  table,  placing  thereon  a  dish  of  boiled 
eels,  one  of  fried  flounders,  a  bowled  fowl,  a  dish 
of  veal  cutlets,  and  a  couple  of  tarts.  Then  Dus- 
sek entered  and  made  away  with  the  lot,  leaving 
but  the  bones!  In  W.  T.  Parke's  "Musical 
Memoirs  "  justice  is  done  to  the  appetite  of  one 
C.  F.  Baumgarten,  for  many  years  leader  of  the 
band  and  composer  at  Covent  Garden  Theatre. 
Once  at  supper  after  the  play  he  and  a  friend  ate 
a  full-grown  hare  between  them.  He  would  never 
condescend  to  drink  out  of  anything  but  a  quart 
pot.  On  one  occasion,  at  the  request  of  his 
friends,  Baumgarten  was  weighed  before  and  after 
dinner.  There  was  eight  pounds  difference !  Wil- 
liam Shield,  the  composer  who  wrote  many  operas 
[171] 


Music    and    Cooking 

for  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  beginning  aptly 
enough  with  one  called  The  Flitch  of  Bacon,  was 
something  of  an  eater.  Parke  tells  how  at  a  din- 
ner one  evening  there  was  a  brace  of  partridges. 
The  hostess  handed  Shield  one  of  these  to  carve 
and  absent-mindedly  he  set  to  and  finished  it, 
while  the  other  guests  were  forced  to  make  shift 
with  the  other  partridge.  Handel  was  a  great 
eater.  He  was  called  the  "  Saxon  Giant,"  as  a 
tribute  to  his  genius,  but  the  phrase  might  have 
had  a  satirical  reference  to  his  enormous  bulk. 
Intending  to  dine  one  day  at  a  certain  tavern,  he 
ordered  beforehand  a  dinner  for  three.  At  the 
hour  appointed  he  sat  down  to  the  table  and  ex- 
pressed' astonishment  that  the  dinner  was  not 
brought  up.  The  waiter  explained  that  he  would 
begin  serving  when  the  company  arrived.  "  Den 
pring  up  de  tinner  brestissimo,"  replied  Handel, 
"  I  am  de  gombany."  Lulli  never  forsook  the  cas- 
serole. Paganini  was  as  good  a  cook  as  he  was 
a  violinist.  Parke  tells  a  story  of  Weichsell,  not 
too  celebrated  a  musician,  but  the  father  of  Mrs. 
Billington  and  Charles  Weichsell,  the  violinist : 
"  He  would  occasionally  supersede  the  labours  of 
his  cook,  and  pass  a  whole  day  in  preparing  his 
favourite  dish,  rump-steaks,  for  the  stewing  pan; 
and  after  the  delicious  viand  had  been  placed  on 
[172] 


Music    and    Cooking 

the  dinner-table,  together  with  early  green  peas 
of  high  price,  if  it  happened  that  the  sauce  was  not 
to  his  liking  he  has  been  known  to  throw  rump- 
steaks,  and  green  peas,  and  all,  out  of  the  window, 
whilst  his  wife  and  children  thought  themselves  for- 
tunate in  not  being  thrown  after  them." 

Is  there  a  cooking  theme  in  Siegfried  to  describe 
Mime's  brewing?  Lavignac  and  others,  who  have 
listed  the  Ring  motive,  have  neglected  to  catalogue 
it,  but  it  is  mentioned  by  Old  Fogy.  Practically 
a  whole  act  is  taken  up  in  Louise  with  the  prep- 
aration for  and  consumption  of  a  dinner.  Scar- 
pia  eats  in  Tosca  and  the  heroine  kills  him  with  a 
table  knife.  There  is  much  talk  of  food  in  Han- 
sel und  Gretel  and  there  is  a  supper  in  The  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor.  There  are  drinking  songs  in 
Don  Giovanni,  Lucrezia  Borgia,  Hamlet,  La  Trav- 
iata,  Girofle-Girofla.  .  .  .  The  reference  to  whis- 
key and  soda  in  Madama  Butterfly  is  celebrated. 
J.  E.  Cox,  the  author  of  "  Musical  Recollections," 
describee  Herr  Pischek  in  the  supper  scene  of  Don 
Giovanni  as  "  out-heroding  Herod  by  swallowing 
glass  after  glass  of  champagne  like  a  sot,  and 
gnawing  the  drumstick  of  a  fowl,  which  he  held 
across  his  mouth  with  his  fingers,  just  as  any  of 
his  own  middle-class  countrymen  may  be  seen  any 
day  of  the  week  all  the  year  round  at  the  mit-tag 
[173] 


Music    and    Cooking 

or  abend-cssen  feeding  at  one  of  their  largely  fre- 
quented tables-d'hote."  Eating  or  drinking  on  the 
stage  is  always  fraught  with  danger,  as  Charles 
Santley  once  discovered  during  Papageno's  supper 
scene  in  The  Magic  Flute:  "  The  supper  which 
Tamino  commands  for  the  hungry  Papageno  con- 
sisted of  pasteboard  imitations  of  good  things,  but 
the  cup  contained  real  wine,  a  small  draught  of 
which  I  found  refreshing  on  a  hot  night  in  July, 
amid  the  dust  and  heat  of  the  stage.  On  the 
occasion  in  question  I  was  putting  the  cup  to  lips, 
when  I  heard  somebody  call  to  me  from  the  wings ; 
I  felt  very  angry  at  the  interruption,  and  was 
just  about  to  swallow  the  wine  when  I  heard  an 
anxious  call  not  to  drink.  Suspecting  something 
was  wrong,  I  pretended  to  drink,  and  deposited  the 
cup  on  the  table.  Immediately  after  the  scene  I 
made  inquiries  about  the  reason  for  the  caution  I 
received,  and  was  informed  that  as  each  night  the 
carpenters,  who  had  no  right  to  it,  finished  what 
remained  of  the  wine  before  the  property  men, 
whose  perquisite  it  was,  could  lay  hold  of  the  cup, 
the  latter,  to  give  their  despoilers  a  lesson,  had 
mingled  castor-oil  with  my  drink !  " 

A  young  husband  of  my  acquaintance  once  be- 
moaned to  me  the  fact  that  his  wife  seemed  des- 
tined to  become  a  great  singer.     "  She  is  such  a 
[174] 


Music    and    Cooking 

remarkable  cook !  "  he  explained  to  account  for  his 
despondency.  I  reassured  him :  "  She  will  cook 
with  renewed  energy  when  she  begins  to  sing  Sieg- 
linde  and  Tosca.  .  .  .  She  will  practise  Vissi 
d'Arte  over  the  gumbo  soup  and  Du  herstes 
Wunder!  while  the  Frankfurters  are  sizzling.  Her 
trills,  her  chromatic  scales,  and  her  messa  di  voce 
will  come  right  in  the  kitchen ;  she  will  equalize  her 
scale  and  learn  to  breathe  correctly  bending  over 
the  oven.  It  is  even  likely  that  she  will  improve 
her  knowledge  of  portamento  while  she  is  washing 
dishes.  When  she  can  prepare  a  succulent  roast 
suckling  pig  she  will  be  able  to  sing  Ocean,  thou 
mighty  monster!  and  she  will  understand  Abscheu- 
licher  when  she  understands  the  mysteries  of  old- 
fashioned  strawberry  shortcake.  If  you  hear  her 
shrieking  Suicidio!  invoking  Agamemnon,  or  ap- 
pealing to  the  Ca$ta  Diva  among  the  kettles  and 
pots  be  not  alarmed.  .  .  .  For  the  love  you  bear 
of  good  food,  man,  do  not  discourage  your  wife's 
ambition.  The  more  she  loves  to  sing,  the  better 
she  will  cook  !  " 

July  17,  1917. 


[175] 


An  Interrupted  Conversation 

"  We  can  never  depend  upon  any  right  adjustment 
of  emotion  to  circumstance." 

Max  Beerbohm. 


An  Interrupted  Conversation 


ORDINARILY  one  does  not  learn  things 
about  oneself  from  Edmund  Gosse,  but  my 
discovery  that  I  am  a  Pyrrhonist  is  due  to 
that  literary  man.  A  Pyrrhonist,  says  Mr.  Gosse, 
is  "  one  who  doubts  whether  it  is  worth  while  to 
struggle  against  the  trend  of  things.  The  man 
who  continues  to  cross  the  road  leisurely,  although 
the  cyclists'  bells  are  ringing,  is  a  Pyrrhonist  — 
and  in  a  very  special  sense,  for  the  ancient  phi- 
losopher who  gives  his  name  to  the  class  made  him- 
self conspicuous  by  refusing  to  get  out  of  the  way 
of  careering  chariots."  Now  the  most  unfamiliar 
friend  I  have  ever  walked  with  knows  my  extreme 
impassivity  at  the  corners  of  streets,  remembers 
the  careless  attitude  with  which  I  saunter  from 
kerb  to  kerb,  whether  it  be  across  the  Grand  Boule- 
vard, Piccadilly,  or  Fifth  Avenue.  Only  once 
has  this  nonchalant  defiance  of  traffic  caused  me 
to  come  to  even  temporary  grief;  that  was  on  the 
last  night  of  the  year  1913,  when,  in  crossing 
Broadway,  I  became  entangled,  God  knows  how, 
in  the  wheels  of  a  swiftly  passing  vehicle,  and 
found  myself,  top  hat  and  all,  in  the  most  igno- 
minious position  before  I  was  well  aware  of  what 
[179] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

had  really  happened.  Then  a  policeman  stooped 
over  me,  book  and  pencil  in  hand,  and  another 
held  the  chauffeur  of  the  victorious  taxi-cab  at 
bay  some  yards  further  up  the  street.  But  I  was 
not  hurt  and  I  waved  them  all  away  with  a  mag- 
nanimous gesture.  ...  It  is  owing  to  this  habit 
of  mine  that  I  often  make  interesting  rencontres 
in  the  middle  of  streets.  It  accounts,  in  fact,  for 
my  running,  quite  absent-mindedly,  plump  into 
Dickinson  Sitgreaves,  who  is  more  American  than 
his  name  sounds,  one  August  day  in  Paris. 

It  was  one  of  those  charming  days  which  make 
August  perhaps  the  most  delightful  month  to  spend 
in  Paris,  although  the  facts  are  not  known  to 
tourists.  Many  a  sly  French  pair,  however,  bored 
with  Trouville,  or  the  season  at  Aix,  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  allurements  of  a  Paris  August  to  re- 
turn surreptitiously  to  the  boulevards.  On  this 
particular  day  almost  all  the  seduction  of  an  Oc- 
tober day  was  in  the  air,  a  splendid  dull  warm- 
cool  crispness,  which  filtered  down  through  the 
faded  chestnut  leaves  from  the  sunlight,  and  left 
pale  splotches  of  purple  and  orange  on  the 
trottoirs  ...  a  really  marvellous  day,  which  I 
was  spending  in  that  most  excellent  occupation  in 
Paris  of  gazing  into  shops  and,  passing  cafes,  star- 
ing into  the  faces  of  those  who  sat  on  the  ter- 
[180] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

rasses.  .  .  .  But  this  is  an  occupation  for  one 
alone;  so,  when  I  met  Sitgreaves,  we  joined  a  ter- 
rasse  ourselves.  We  were  near  the  Napolitain 
and  there  he  and  I  sat  down  and  began  to  talk  as 
only  we  two  can  talk  together  after  long  sep- 
aration. He  explained  in  the  beginning  how  I 
had  interrupted  him.  .  .  .  There  was  a  fille,  some 
little  Polish  beauty  who  had  captivated  his  senses 
a  day  or  so  before,  brought  to  him  quite  by  acci- 
dent in  an  hotel  where  the  patron  furnished  his 
clients  with  such  pleasure  as  the  town  and  his  ad- 
dress book  afforded.  ...  I  knew  the  patron  my- 
self, a  fluent,  amusing  sort  of  person,  who  had  been 
a  cuirassier  and  who  resembled  Mayol  ...  a  cafe- 
concert  proprietor  of  an  hotel.  ...  It  was  his 
boast  that  he  had  never  disappointed  a  client  and 
it  is  certain  that  he  would  promise  anything. 
Some  have  said  that  his  stock  in  trade  was  one 
pretty  girl,  who  assumed  costumes,  ages,  hair,  and 
accents,  to  please  whatever  demand  was  made  upon 
her,  but  this  I  do  not  believe.  There  must  have 
been  at  least  two  of  them.  The  Grand  Duchess 
Anastasia,  it  was  rumoured,  had  dined  with  Mar- 
cel at  one  time,  in  his  little  hotel,  and  certainly 
one  king  had  been  seen  to  go  there,  and  one  mem- 
ber of  the  English  royal  family,  but  Marcel  re- 
mained simple  and  obliging. 
[181] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

"  When  will  you  look  up  the  little  Polonaise?  " 
I  asked,  as  we  sipped  Amer  Picon  and  stared  with 
fresh  interest  at  each  new  boot  and  ankle  that 
passed.  Paris  in  August  is  like  another  place  in 
May. 

"  Why  don't  you  come  along? "  queried  Sit- 
greaves  in  reply,  "  and  we  could  go  at  once.  .  .  . 
Oh,  I  know  that  you  are  in  no  mood  for  pleasure. 
You  see  the  point  is  that  I  shall  have  to  wait. 
Marcel  will  have  to  send  for  the  fitte.  It  is  a  bore 
to  wait  in  a  room  with  red  curtains  and  a  picture 
of  Amour  et  Psyche  on  the  walls.  .  .  .  What  have 
you  been  doing? "  He  paid  the  consommation 
and  started  to  leave  without  waiting  for  a  reply, 
because  he  knew  of  my  complaisance.  I  rose  with 
him  and  we  walked  down  the  boulevard. 

"  What  is  there  to  do  in  Paris  in  August  but 
to  enjoy  oneself?  "  I  asked.  "  I  have  made  friends 
with  an  apache  and  his  gigolette.  We  eat  bread 
and  cheese  and  drink  bad  wine  on  the  fortifications. 
...  In  the  afternoon  I  walk.  Sometimes  I  go  to 
the  Luxembourg  gardens  to  hear  the  band  bray 
sad  music,  or  to  watch  the  little  boys  play  diavolo, 
or  sail  their  tiny  boats  about  the  fountain  pond; 
sometimes  I  walk  quite  silently  up  the  Avenue 
Gabriel,  with  its  triste  line  of  trees,  and  dream 
that  I  am  a  Grand  Duke ;  in  the  evening  there  are 
[182] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

again  the  terrasses  of  the  cafes,  dinner  in  Mont- 
martre  at  the  Clou,  or  the  Cou-Cou,  a  revue  at  La 
Cigale,  but  it  is  all  governed,  my  day  and  my  night, 
by  what  happens  and  by  whom  I  meet.  .  .  .  Have 
you  seen  Jacques  Blanche's  portrait  of  Nijinsky?  " 

"  I  think  it  is  Picasso  that  interests  me  now," 
Sitgreaves  was  saying.  "  He  puts  wood  and  pieces 
of  paper  into  his  composition ;  architecture,  that's 
what  it  is.  ...  I  don't  go  to  Blanche's  any  more. 
It's  too  delightfully  perfect,  the  atmosphere  there. 
.  .  .  The  books  are  by  all  the  famous  writers,  and 
they  are  all  dedicated  to  Blanche ;  the  pictures  are 
all  of  the  great  men  of  today,  and  they  are  all 
painted  by  Blanche;  the  music  is  played  by  the 
best  musicians.  .  .  .  Do  you  know,  I  think 
Blanche  is  the  one  man  who  has  made  a  success- 
ful profession  of  being  an  amateur  —  unless  one 
excepts  Robert  de  la  Condamine.  .  .  .  You  can 
scarcely  call  a  man  who  does  so  much  a  dilettante. 
Yes,  I  think  he  is  an  amateur  in  the  best  sense." 

"  I  met  the  Countess  of  Jena  there  the  other 
day,"  I  responded.  "  She  had  scarcely  left  the 
room  before  three  people  volunteered,  sans  ran- 
cune,  to  tell  her  story.  She  is  a  devout  Catholic, 
and  her  husband  contrived  in  some  way  to  substi- 
tute a  spy  for  the  priest  in  the  confessional.  He 
acquired  an  infinite  amount  of  information,  but  it 
[183] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

didn't  do  him  any  good.  She  is  so  witty  that 
every  one  invites  her  everywhere  in  spite  of  her 
reputation,  and  he  is  left  to  dine  alone  at  the 
Meurice.  Dull  men  simply  are  not  tolerated  in 
Paris. 

"  It  was  at  Blanche's  last  year  that  I  met 
George  Moore,"  I  continued.  "  You  know  I  have 
just  seen  him  in  London.  He  is  at  work  on  The 
Apostle,  making  a  novel  of  it,  to  be  called  '  The 
Brook  Kerith.'  .  .  .  For  a  time  he  thought  of  fin- 
ishing it  up  as  a  play  because  a  novel  meant  a 
visit  to  Palestine  and  that  was  distasteful  to  him, 
but  it  finally  became  a  novel.  He  went  to  Pales- 
tine and  stayed  six  weeks,  just  long  enough  to  find 
a  monastery  and  to  study  the  lay  of  the  country. 
For  he  says,  truly  enough,  that  one  cannot  imagine 
landscapes;  one  does  not  know  whether  there  is  a 
high  or  low  horizon.  There  may  be  a  brook  which 
all  the  characters  must  cross.  It  is  necessary  to 
see  these  things.  Besides  he  had  to  find  a  monas- 
tery. .  .  .  He  told  me  of  his  thrill  when  he  dis- 
covered an  order  of  monks  living  on  a  narrow  ledge 
of  cliff,  with  500  feet  sheer  rise  and  descent  above 
and  below  it  ...  and  when  he  had  found  this 
his  work  was  done  and  he  returned  to  England  to 
write  the  book,  a  reaction,  for  he  told  me  that  he 
was  getting  tired  of  being  personal  in  literature. 
[18*] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

The  book  will  exhibit  a  conflict  between  two  types : 
Christ,  the  disappointed  mystic,  and  Paul ;  Christ, 
who  sees  that  there  is  no  good  to  be  served  in  sav- 
ing the  world  by  his  death,  and  Paul,  full  of  hope, 
idealism,  and  illusions.  It  is  the  drama  of  the 
conflict  between  the  nature  which  is  affected  by 
externals  and  that  which  is  not,  he  told  me." 

"  It's  a  subject  for  Anatole  France,"  said  Sit- 
greaves.  "  Moore,  in  my  opinion,  is  not  a  novelist. 
His  great  achievements  are  his  memoirs.  I  was 
interested  in  '  Evelyn  Innes  '  and  '  Esther  Waters,' 
but  something  was  lacking.  There  is  nothing 
lacking  in  the  three  volumes  of  '  Hail  and  Fare- 
well.' They  grow  in  interest.  Moore  has  found 
his  metier." 

"  But  he  insists,"  I  explained,  before  the  door 
of  the  little  hotel,  "  that  «  Hail  and  Farewell '  is  a 
novel.  He  is  infuriated  when  some  one  suggests 
that  it  is  a  book  after  the  manner  of,  say,  *  The 
Reminiscences  of  Lady  Randolph  Churchill.'  .  .  ." 

We  entered  and  walked  up  the  little  staircase. 

"  Do  you  mean  that  the  incidents  are  untrue  ?  " 

We  were  at  the  door  of  the  concierge  and  there 
stood  Marcel,  his  apron  spread  neatly  over  his 
ample  paunch.  It  was  early  in  the  afternoon  and 
the  room  beyond  him,  sometimes  filled  with  pos- 
sibilities for  customers,  was  empty. 
[185] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

"  Ah,  monsieur  est  reveiw!  "  he  exclaimed  in  his 
piping  voice.  "  C'est  pour  la  petite  Polonaise 
sans  doute  que  monsieur  revient?  " 

"  Oui,"  answered  Sitgreaves,  "  faut-U  attendre 
longtemps?  " 

"  Mais  non,  monsieur,  un  petit  moment.  Elle 
habite  en  face.  Je  vais  envoyer  le  garcon  la 
chercher  tout  de  suite.  Et  pour  monsieur,  votre 
ami?  " 

"  Je  ne  desire  rien,"  I  replied. 

Marcel  bowed  humbly.  ..."  Comme  monsieur 
voudra."  Then  a  doubt  assailed  him.  "  Peut- 
etre  que  la  petite  Polonaise  vous  suffira  a  tous  les 
deux?  " 

"  Jamais  de  la  vie!  "  I  shouted,  "  Flute,  Mer- 
cure,  allez!  Je  suis  puceau!  " 

Marcel  was  equal  to  this.  "  Et  ta  soeurf  "  he 
demanded  as  he  disappeared  down  the  staircase. 

He  had  put  us  meanwhile  in  the  very  chamber 
with  the  red  curtains  and  the  picture  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche  that  Sitgreaves  had  described.  Perhaps 
all  the  rooms  were  similarly  decorated.  I  lounged 
on  the  bed  while  Sitgreaves  sat  on  a  chair  and 
smoked.  .  .  . 

I  answered  his  last  question,  "  No,  they  are 
true,  but  there  is  selection  and  form." 

"  While  other  memoirs  have  neither  selection  nor 
[186] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

form  and  usually  are  not  altogether  accurate  in 
the  bargain.  .  .  ." 

"  Especially  Madame  Melba's.   .  .  ." 

"  Especially,"  agreed  Sitgreaves  delightedly, 
"  Madame  Melba's." 

"  Moore  is  really  right,"  I  went  on.  "  He  says 
that  some  people  insist  that  Balzac  was  greater 
than  Turgeniev,  because  the  Frenchman  took  his 
characters  from  imagination,  the  Russian  his  from 
life.  You  will  remember,  however,  that  Edgar 
Saltus  says,  '  The  manufacture  of  fiction  from 
facts  was  begun  by  Balzac.'  Moore's  point  is 
that  all  great  writers  write  from  observation. 
There  is  no  other  way.  A  character  may  have 
more  or  less  resemblance  to  the  original ;  it  may 
be  derived  and  bear  a  different  name;  still  there 
must  have  been  something.  ...  In  a  letter  which 
Moore  once  wrote  me  stands  the  phrase,  4  Memory 
is  the  mother  of  the  Muses.'  '  Hail  and  Farewell ' 
is  just  as  much  a  work  of  imagination,  according 
to  Moore,  as  '  A  Nest  of  Noblemen '  or  '  Les  Illu- 
sions Perdues.'  " 

"  Of  course,"  admitted  Sitgreaves.  "  No 
writer  but  what  has  suffered  from  the  recognition 
of  his  characters.  Dickens  got  into  trouble.  Os- 
car Wilde  is  said  to  have  done  himself  in  '  Dorian 
Gray,'  and  Meredith's  models  for  '  The  Tragic 
[187] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

Comedians  '  and  '  Diana  of  the  Crossways  '  are 
well  known." 

"  All  Moore  has  done  is  to  call  his  characters 
by  their  real  names  and  he  has  reported  their 
conversations  as  he  remembered  them,  but,  mind 
you,  he  has  not  put  into  the  book  all  their  conver- 
sations, or  even  all  the  people  he  knew  at  that 
period.  Arthur  Symons,  for  instance,  a  great 
friend  of  Moore's  at  that  time,  is  scarcely  men- 
tioned, and  with  reason:  he  has  no  part  in  the 
form  of  the  book;  its  plot  is  not  concerned  with 
him. 

"  All  artists  create  only  in  the  image  of  the 
things  they  have  seen,  reduced  to  terms  of  art 
through  their  imagination.  The  paintings  of  Mina 
Loy  seem  to  the  beholder  the  strange  creations  of 
a  vagrant  fancy.  I  remember  one  picture  of  hers 
in  which  an  Indian  girl  stands  poised  before  an 
oriental  palace,  the  most  fantastic  of  palaces,  it 
would  seem.  But  the  artist  explained  to  me  that 
it  was  simply  the  f  a9ade  of  Hagenbeck's  menagerie 
in  Hamburg,  seen  with  an  imaginative  eye.  The 
girl  was  a  model.  .  .  .  One  day  on  the  beach  at  the 
Lido  she  saw  a  young  man  in  a  bathing  suit  lying 
stretched  on  the  sand  with  his  head  in  the  lap  of  a 
beautiful  woman.  Other  women  surrounded  the 
two.  The  group  immediately  suggested  a  compo- 
[188] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

sition  to  her.  She  went  home  and  painted.  She 
took  the  young  man's  bathing  suit  off  and  gave 
him  wings ;  the  women  she  dressed  in  lovely  floating 
robes,  and  she  called  the  picture,  V Amour  Dorlote 
par  les  Belles  Dames. 

"  And  once  1  asked  Frank  Harris  to  explain  to 
me  the  origin  of  his  vivid  story,  '  Montes  the  Mat- 
ador.' '  It's  too  simple,'  he  said,  '  the  model  for 
Montes  was  a  little  Mexican  greaser  whom  I  met 
in  Kansas.  He  was  one  of  many  in  charge  of 
cattle  shipped  up  from  Mexico  and  down  from  the 
States.  All  the  white  cattle  men,  the  gringos, 
held  him  in  great  contempt.  But,'  continued 
Harris,  speaking  deliberately  with  his  beautifully 
modulated  voice,  and  his  eyes  twinkling  with  the 
memory  of  the  thing,  '  I  soon  found  that  the 
greaser's  contempt  for  the  gringos  was  immeas- 
ureably  greater  than  their's  for  him.  "  Bah,"  he 
would  say,  "  they  know  nothing."  And  it  was  so. 
He  could  go  into  a  cattle  car  on  a  pitch  dark 
night  and  make  the  bulls  stand  up,  a  feat  that 
none  of  the  white  men  would  have  attempted.  I 
asked  him  how  he  did  this  and  he  told  me  the 
answer  in  three  words,  "  I  know  them."  He  could 
go  into  a  herd  of  cattle  just  let  loose  together  and 
pick  out  their  leader  immediately,  pick  him  out 
before  the  cattle  themselves  had!  There  was  the 
[189] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

origin  of  "  Monies  the  Matador."  He  was 
named,  of  course,  after  the  famous  torero  de- 
scribed by  Gautier  in  his  "  Voyage  en  Espagne." 
When  I  was  in  Madrid  sometime  later  I  went  to  a 
number  of  bull-fights  before  I  put  the  story  to- 
gether.' '  But,'  I  asked  Harris,  '  Is  it  possible 
for  an  espada  to  stand  in  the  bull  ring  with  his 
back  to  the  bull,  during  a  charge,  as  you  have 
made  him  do  frequently  in  the  story?'  'Of 
course  not,'  he  answered  me  at  once,  smiling  his 
frankly  malevolent  smile,  *  Of  course  not.  That 
part  was  put  in  to  show  how  much  the  public  will 
stand  for  in  a  work  of  fiction.  I  believe  one  of 
the  espadas  tried  it  some  time  after  the  book  ap- 
peared and  was  immediately  killed.' 

"  Fiction,  history,  poetry,  criticism,  at  their 
best,  are  all  the  same  thing.  When  they  inflame 
the  imagination  and  stir  the  pulse  they  are  iden- 
tical :  all  creative  work.  It  does  not  matter  what 
a  man  writes  about.  It  matters  how  he  writes  it. 
Subject  is  nothing.  Should  we  regard  Velasquez 
as  less  important  than  Murillo  because  the  former 
painted  portraits  of  contemporaries,  whom  in  his 
fashion  he  criticized,  while  the  Spanish  Bouguereau 
disguised  his  models  as  the  Virgin?  Walter 
Pater's  description  of  the  Monna  Lisa  would  live 
if  the  picture  disappeared.  Indeed  it  has  created 
[190] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

a  factitious  interest  in  da  Vinci's  masterwork. 
Even  more  might  be  said  for  Huysmans's  descrip- 
tion of  Moreau's  Salome,  which  actually  puts  the 
figures  in  the  picture  in  motion  1  The  critic,  the 
historian  at  their  best  are  creative  artists  as  the 
writers  of  fiction  are  creative  artists.  Should  we 
regard,  for  example, '  Imperial  Purple  '  less  a  work 
of  creative  art  than  '  The  Rise  of  Silas  Lap- 
ham'?" 

"  I  am  getting  your  meaning  more  and  more," 
said  Sitgreaves.  "  And  it  occurs  to  me  that  per- 
haps I  have  been  unjust  in  rating  Moore  low  as 
a  novelist.  Perhaps  I  should  have  said  that  he  is 
more  successful  in  those  books  which  depend  more 
on  his  memory  and  less  on  his  imaginative  instinct. 
He  cannot,  after  all,  have  known  Jesus  and 
Paul.  .  .  ." 

"  You  are  quite  wrong,"  I  said.  "  At  least  from 
his  point  of  view.  He  says  that  he  knows  Paul 
better  than  he  has  ever  known  any  one  else.  He 
even  finds  hair  on  Paul's  chest.  He  can  describe 
Paul,  I  believe,  to  the  last  mole.  He  knows  his 
favourite  colours,  and  whether  he  prefers  arti- 
chokes to  alligator  pears.  As  for  Christ,  every- 
body professes  to  know  Christ  these  days.  Since 
the  world  has  become  distinctly  un-Christian 
it  has  become  comparatively  easy  to  discuss 
[191] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

Christ.  He  is  regarded  as  an  historical  charac- 
ter, and  a  much  more  simple  one  than  Napoleon. 
I  have  heard  anarchists  in  bar-rooms  talk  about 
him  by  the  hour,  sometimes  very  graphically  and 
always  with  a  certain  amount  of  wit.  No,  it  is  all 
the  same.  .  .  .  Moore,  now  that  he  has  been  to 
Palestine  and  read  the  gospels,  feels  as  well  ac- 
quainted with  Christ  and  Paul  as  he  does  with 
Edward  Martyn  and  Yeats  and  Lady  Gregory." 

"  I  must  fall  back  on  the  personal  then,"  said 
Sitgreaves,  now  really  at  bay,  "  and  say  that  I  am 
less  moved  and  interested  when  Moore  is  describing 
Evelyn  Innes,  than  when  he  tells  of  his  affair  with 
Doris  at  Orelay." 

"  I  am  glad  that  you  mentioned  '  Evelyn  Innes  ' 
again,"  I  said,  "  because  it  is  in  this  very  book 
that  he  is  said  to  have  painted  so  many  of  his 
friends.  Ulick  Dean  is  undoubtedly  Yeats.  It 
has  been  suggested  that  Arnold  Dolmetsch  posed 
for  the  portrait  of  Evelyn's  father.  Dolmetsch's 
testimony  on  this  point  goes  farther.  He  says 
that  he  dictated  certain  passages  in  the 
book.  .  .  ." 

"What  is  it,  then?  What  is  the  difference? 
There  is  some  difference,  of  that  I  am  sure.  .  .  ." 

"  The  difference  is  — "  I  began  when  the  door 
opened  and  Marcel  entered,  the  most  amazingly 
[192] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

comprehensive  smile  on  his  countenance.  "  Made- 
moiselle vous  attend,"  he  said,  and  he  looked  the 
question.  "  Shall  I  bring  her  in  here?  " 

Sitgreaves  answered  it  immediately,  "  Je  viens." 
And  then  to  me,  "  Wait,"  as  he  vanished  through 
the  doorway.  ...  I  walked  to  the  window,  drew 
aside  the  red  curtains,  and  looked  out  into  the 

fountain-splashed  court  below.  .  .  . 

****** 

"  What  is  the  difference?  " 

"  I  suppose  it  is  that  you  prefer  the  new  Moore 
to  the  old  Moore,  the  author  of  the  later  and  bet- 
ter written  books  to  the  author  of  the  earlier  ones. 
'  Evelyn  Innes  '  was  many  times  rewritten. 
Moore  has  said  that  he  could  never  get  it  to  suit 
him,  but  he  has  also  said,  recently,  that  he  would 
never  rewrite  another  book  (a  resolution  he  has 
not  kept).  'Memoirs  of  My  Dead  Life'  and 
'  Hail  and  Farewell '  do  not  need  rewriting. 
They  are  written  to  stand.  '  The  Brook  Kerith,' 
perhaps,  you  will  find  equally  to  your  taste.  It 
will  be  the  newest  Moore.  .  .  ." 

"  You  have  explained  to  me,"  said  Sitgreaves, 
"  the  difference ;  it  is  one  of  development.  Now 
that  I  think  of  it  I  don't  believe  that  Anatole 
France  could  write  *  The  Brook  Kerith.'  ...  It 
would  be  too  symbolical,  too  cynical,  in  his  hands. 
[193] 


Interrupted     Conversation 

Moore  will  perhaps  make  it  more  human,  by  know- 
ing the  characters.  I  wonder,"  he  continued  mus- 
ingly, as  we  left  the  room,  and  descended  the 
stairs,  "  if  he  told  you  whether  that  hair  on 
Paul's  chest  was  red  or  black.  .  .  ." 

February  1,  1915. 


[194] 


The  Authoritative  Work  on 
American  Music 


The   Authoritative   Work 
on  American   Music 


HL.  MENCKEN  pointed  out  to  me  re- 
cently, in  his  most  earnest  and  per- 
suasive manner,  that  it  was  my  duty  to 
write  a  book  about  the  American  composers,  ex- 
posing their  futile  pretensions  and  describing  their 
flaccid  opera,  stave  by  stave.  It  was  in  vain  that 
I  urged  that  this  would  be  but  a  sleeveless  errand, 
arguing  that  I  could  not  fight  men  of  straw,  that 
these  our  composers  had  no  real  standing  in  the 
concert  halls,  and  that  pushing  them  over  would  be 
an  easy  exercise  for  a  child  of  ten.  On  the  con- 
trary, he  retorted,  they  belonged  to  the  acad- 
emies ;  certain  people  believed  that  they  were  im- 
portant; it  was  necessary  to  dislodge  this  belief. 
I  suggested,  with  a  not  too  heavily  assumed  hu- 
mility, that  I  had  already  done  something  of  the 
sort  in  an  essay  entitled  "  The  Great  American 
Composer."  "  A  good  beginning,"  asserted  Col. 
Mencken,  "  but  not  long  enough.  I  won't  be  sat- 
isfied with  anything  less  than  a  book."  "  But  if  I 
wrote  a  book  about  Professors  Parker,  Chadwick, 
Hadley,  and  the  others  I  could  find  nothing  differ- 
ent to  say  about  them ;  they  are  all  alike.  Neither 
[197] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

their  lives  nor  their  music  offer  opportunities  for 
variations."  "An  excellent  idea!"  cried  Major 
Mencken,  enthusiastically,  "  Write  one  chapter 
and  then  repeat  it  verbatim  throughout  the  book, 
changing  only  the  name  of  the  principal  character. 
Then  clap  on  a  preface,  explaining  your  reason 
for  this  procedure."  My  last  protest  was  the 
feeblest  of  all :  "  I  can't  spend  a  year  or  a 
month  or  a  week  poring  over  the  scores  of  these 
fellows ;  I  can't  go  to  concerts  to  hear  their  music. 
I  might  as'  well  go  to  work  in  a  coal  mine."  "  I'll 
do  it  for  you  1 "  triumphantly  checkmated  General 
Mencken.  "  I'll  read  the  scores  and  you  shall 
write  the  book !  "  And  so  he  left  me,  as  on  a 
similar  occasion  the  fiend,  having  exhibited  his 
prospectus,  vanished  from  the  eyes  of  our  Lord. 
And  I  returned  to  my  home  sorely  troubled,  finding 
that  the  words  of  the  man  were  running  about  in 
my  head  like  so  many  little  Japanese  waltzing 
mice. 

And,  after  much  cogitation,  I  went  to  such  and 
such  a  book  case  and  took  down  a  certain  volume 
written  by  Louis  Charles  Elson  (a  very  large  red 
tome)  and  another  by  Rupert  Hughes,  to  see  if 
their  words  of  praise  for  our  weak  musical  brothers 
would  stir  me  to  action.  I  found  that  they  did 
not.  My  heart  action  remained  normal;  no  film 
[198] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

covered  my  eyes;  foam  did  not  issue  from  my 
mouth.  Indeed  I  read,  quite  calmly,  in  Mr. 
Hughes's  "  American  Composers  "  that  A.  J. 
Goodrich  is  "  recognized  among  scholars  abroad  as 
one  of  the  leading  spirits  of  our  time " ;  that 
"  (Henry  Holden)  Huss  has  ransacked  the  piano 
and  pillaged  almost  every  imaginable  fabric  of 
high  colour.  .  .  .  The  result  is  gorgeous  and  pur- 
ple " ;  that  "  The  thing  we  are  all  waiting  for  is 
that  American  grand  opera,  The  Woman  of 
Marblehead  (by  Louis  Adolphe  Coerne).  It  is 
predicted  that  it  will  not  receive  the  marble 
heart  " ;  that  "  I  know  of  no  modern  composer  who 
has  come  nearer  to  relighting  the  fires  that  burn 
in  the  old  gavottes  and  fugues  and  preludes  (than 
Arthur  Foote).  His  two  gavottes  are  to  me  away 
the  best  since  Bach  " ;  that  "  the  song  (Israfe\  by 
Edgar  Stillman-Kelley)  is  in  my  fervent  belief,  a 
masterwork  of  absolute  genius,  one  of  the  very 
greatest  lyrics  in  the  world's  music  " ;  and  in  "  The 
History  of  American  Music  "  by  Louis  C.  Elson 
that  "  Music  has  made  even  more  rapid  strides 
than  literature  among  us,"  and  that  "  he  (George 
W.  Chadwick)  has  reconciled  the  symmetrical 
(sonata)  form  with  modern  passion."  But  it 
was  in  the  fourth  volume  of  "  The  Art  of  Music," 
published  by  the  National  Society  of  Music,  that 
[199] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

I  found  the  supreme  examples  of  this  kind  of 
writing.  The  volume  was  edited  by  Arthur  Far- 
well  and  W.  Dermot  Darby.  Therein  I  read  with 
a  sort  of  awed  astonishment  that  one  of  the  songs 
of  Frederick  Ayres  "  reveals  a  poignancy  of  im- 
agination and  a  perception  and  apprehension  of 
beauty  seldom  attained  by  any  composer."  I 
learned  that  T.  Carl  Whitmer  has  a  "  spiritual 
kinship  "  with  Arthur  Shepherd,  Hans  Pfitzner, 
and  Vincent  d'Indy.  His  music  is  "  psycholog- 
ically subtle  and  spiritually  rarefied:  in  colour 
it  corresponds  to  the  violet  end  of  the  spectrum." 
I  turned  the  pages  until  I  came  to  the  name  of 
Miss  Gena  Branscombe :  "  Inexhaustible  buoy- 
ancy, a  superlative  emotional  wealth,  and  wholly 
singular  gift  of  musical  intuition  are  the  qualities 
which  have  shaped  the  composer's  musical  person- 
ality (without  much  effort  of  the  imagination  we 
might  say  that  they  are  the  qualities  that  shaped 
Beethoven's  musical  personality).  .  .  .  Her  im- 
patient melodies  leap  and  dash  with  youthful  life, 
while  her  accompaniments  abound  in  harmonic 
hairbreadth  escapes."  Before  he  became  ac- 
quainted with  the  later  French  idiom  Harvey  W. 
Loomis  "  spontaneously  breathed  forth  the  quality 
of  spirit  which  we  now  recognize  in  a  Debussy  or  a 
Ravel." 

[200] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

Curiously  enough,  however,  these  statements  did 
not  annoy  me.  I  found  no  desire  arising  in  me  to 
deny  them  and  doubtless,  though  mayhap  with  a 
guilty  conscience,  I  should  have  ditched  the  un- 
dertaking, consigned  it  to  that  heap  of  undone 
duties,  where  already  lie  notes  on  a  comparison  of 
Andalusian  mules  with  the  mules  of  Liane  de 
Pougy,  a  few  scribbled  memoranda  for  a  treatise 
on  the  love  habits  of  the  mole,  and  a  half-finished 
biography  of  the  talented  gentleman  who  signed 
his  works,  "  Nick  Carter,"  if  my  by  this  time  quite 
roving  eye  had  not  alighted,  entirely  fortuitously, 
on  one  of  the  forgotten  glories  of  my  library,  a 
slender  volume  entitled  "  Popular  American  Com- 
posers." 

I  recalled  how  I  had  bought  this  book.  Hap- 
pening into  a  modest  second-hand  bookshop  on 
lower  Third  Avenue,  maintained  chiefly  for  the 
laudable  purpose  of  redistributing  paper  novels 
of  the  Seaside  and  kindred  libraries,  of  which,  alas, 
we  hear  very  little  nowadays,  I  asked  the  pro- 
prietor if  by  chance  he  possessed  any  literature  re- 
lating to  the  art  of  music.  By  way  of  answer,  he 
retired  to  the  very  back  of  his  little  room,  searched 
for  a  space  in  a  litter  on  the  floor,  and  then  re- 
turned with  a  pile  of  nine  volumes  or  so  in  his 
arms.  The  titles,  such  as  "  Great  Violinists," 
[201] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

"  Harmony  in  Thirteen  Lessons,"  and  "  How  to 
Sing,"  did  not  intrigue  me,  but  in  idly  turning  the 
pages  of  this  "  Popular  American  Composers  "  I 
came  across  a  half-tone  reproduction  of  a  photo- 
graph of  Paul  Dresser,  the  only  less  celebrated 
brother  of  Theodore  Dreiser,  with  a  short  biog- 
raphy of  the  composer  of  On  the  Banks  of  the 
Wabash.  As  Sir  George  Grove  in  his  excellent 
dictionary  neglected  to  mention  this  portentous 
name  in  American  Art  and  Letters  (although  he 
devoted  sixty-seven  pages,  printed  in  double  col- 
umns, to  Mendelssohn)  I  saw  the  advantage  of  add- 
ing the  little  book  to  my  collection.  The  book- 
seller, when  questioned,  offered  to  relinquish  the 
volume  for  a  total  of  fifteen  cents,  and  I  carried 
it  away  with  me.  Once  I  had  become  more  thor- 
oughly acquainted  with  its  pages  I  realized  that  I 
would  willingly  have  paid  fifteen  dollars  for  it. 

This  book,  indeed,  cannot  fail  to  delight  Gen- 
eral Mencken.  There  is  no  reference  in  its  pages 
to  Edgar  Stillman-Kelley,  Miss  Gena  Brans- 
combe,  Louis  Adolphe  Coerne,  Henry  Holden 
Huss,  T.  Carl  Whitmer,  Arthur  Farwell,  Arthur 
Foote,  or  A.  J.  Goodrich.  In  fact,  if  we  over- 
look brief  notices  of  John  Philip  Sousa,  Harry 
von  Tilzer,  Paul  Dresser,  Charles  K.  Harris,  and 
Hattie  Starr  (whom  you  will  immediately  recall  as 
[203] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

the  composer  of  Little  Alabama  Coon),  the  author, 
Frank  L.  Boyden,  has  not  hesitated  to  go  to  the 
roots  of  his  subject,  pushing  aside  the  college  pro- 
fessors and  their  dictums,  and  has  turned  his  at- 
tention to  figures  in  the  art  life  of  America,  from 
whom,  Mencken  himself,  I  feel  sure,  would  not  take 
a  single  paragraph  of  praise,  so  richly  is  it  de- 
served. I  am  unfamiliar  with  the  causes  con- 
tributing to  this  book's  comparative  obscurity; 
perhaps,  indeed,  they  are  similar  to  those  respon- 
sible for  the  early  failure  of  "  Sister  Carrie." 
May  not  we  even  suspect  that  the  odium  cast  by 
the  Doubledays  on  the  author  of  that  romance 
might  have  been  actively  transferred  in  some 
degree  to  a  work  which  contained  a  biographical 
notice  and  a  picture  of  his  brother?  At  any  rate, 
"  Popular  American  Composers,"  published  in 
1902,  fell  into  undeserved  oblivion  and  so  I  make 
no  apology  for  inviting  my  readers  to  peruse  its 
pages  with  me. 

Opening  the  book,  then,  at  random,  I  discover  on 
page  96  a  biography  of  Lottie  A.  Kellow  (her 
photograph  graces  the  reverse  of  this  page).  In 
a  few  well-chosen  words  (almost  indeed  in  "  gipsy 
phrases  ")  Mr.  Boyden  gives  us  the  salient  details 
of  her  career.  Mrs.  Kellow  is  a  resident  of 
Cresco,  Iowa,  a  church  singer  of  note,  and  the 
[203] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

possessor  of  a  contralto  voice  of  great  volume. 
As  a  composer  she  has  to  her  credit  "  marches, 
cakewalks,  schottisches,  and  other  styles  of  instru- 
mental music."  We  are  given  a  picture  of  Mrs. 
Kellow  at  work :  "  Mrs.  Kellow's  best  efforts  are 
made  in  the  evening,  and  in  darkness,  save  the 
light  of  the  moonbeams  on  the  keys  of  her  piano." 
We  are  also  told  that  "  she  is  happy  in  her  in- 
spirations and  a  sincere  lover  of  music.  All  of 
her  compositions  show  a  decided  talent  and  possess 
musical  elements  which  are  only  to  be  found  in 
the  works  of  an  artist.  Mrs.  Kellow's  musical 
friends  are  confident  of  her  success  as  a  composer 
and  predict  for  her  a  brilliant  future." 

Let  us  turn  to  the  somewhat  more  extensive 
biography  of  W.  T.  Mullin  on  Page  4«  (his  pho- 
tograph faces  this  page).  Almost  in  the  first 
line  the  author  rewards  our  attention :  "  To  him 
may  be  applied  the  simplest  and  grandest  eulogy 
Shakespeare  ever  pronounced :  '  He  was  a  man.' ' 
We  are  also  informed  that  he  was  born  of  a  cul- 
tured family,  that  his  inherited  nobility  of  char- 
acter has  been  carefully  fostered  by  a  thorough 
education,  and  told  that  one  finds  in  him  the  un- 
usual combination  of  genius  wedded  to  sound  com- 
mon sense  and  practical  business  capacity.  His 
family  moved  to  Colorado,  Texas,  while  he  was 
[204] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

still  a  lad  and  here  his  musical  talent  began  to 
display  itself.  "  The  inventive  faculties  of  the 
small  boy,  and  the  innate  harmony  of  the  musi- 
cian, combined  to  improvise  a  crude  instrument 
which  emitted  the  notes  of  the  scale.  Successful 
at  drawing  forth  a  concord  of  sweet  sounds, 
he  continued  to  experiment  upon  everything 
which  would  emit  musical  vibrations.  (Even 
the  pigs,  I  take  it,  did  not  escape.)  He. 
consequently  discovered  the  laws  of  vibrating 
chords  before  he  had  mastered  the  intricacies  of 
the  multiplication  table.  Yet  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  his  musical  education  was  neglected.  A  four 
months'  course  in  piano  instruction  was  inter- 
rupted and  then  resumed  for  two  months  more. 
Upon  this  meagre  foundation  rested  his  subse- 
quent phenomenal  progress."  I  pause  to  point 
out  to  the  astonished  and  breathless  reader  that 
even  Mozart  and  Schubert,  infant  prodigies  that 
they  were,  received  more  training  than  this. 

I  continue  to  quote :  "  At  the  age  of  thirteen 
he  joined  The  Colorado  (Texas)  Cornet  Band  as 
a  charter  member.  The  youngest  member  of  the 
band,  he  soon  outstripped  his  comrades  by  virtue 
of  his  superior  natural  ability.  His  position  was 
that  of  second  tenor.  Wearying  of  the  monotony 
of  playing,  he  determined  to  venture  on  solo  work. 
[205] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

The  boy  felt  the  impetus  of  restless  power  and 
the  following  incident  illustrates  his  remarkable 
originality.  Taking  the  piano  score  of  a  favour- 
ite melody  he  transposed  it  within  the  compass  of 
the  second  tenor.  This  feat  evoked  admiring  ap- 
plause because  of  his  extreme  youth  and  untrained 
abilities.  The  band-master  remarked  that  elderly 
and  experienced  heads  could  hardly  have  accom- 
plished this. 

"  From  boyhood  to  manhood  he  has  remained 
with  the  Colorado  (Texas)  band  as  one  of  its  most 
efficient  members,  composing  in  his  leisure  moments, 
marches,  ragtimes,  waltzes,  song  and  dance  schot- 
tisches,  etc.  Of  his  many  meritorious  composi- 
tions only  one  has  so  far  been  given  to  the  public : 
—  The  West  Texas  Fair  March,  composed  for 
and  dedicated  to  the  management  of  the  West 
Texas  Fair  and  Round-up.  This  institution  holds 
its  annual  meetings  at  Abilene,  Texas.  There  the 
march  was  played  for  the  first  time  at  their  Oc- 
tober, 1899,  meet  with  great  success,  and  again 
at  their  September,  1900,  meet  by  the  Stockman 
band  of  Colorado,  Texas,  which  has  furnished 
music  for  the  West  Texas  Fair  during  their  1899 
and  1900  meetings.  Mr.  Mullin's  position  in  the 
Stockman  band  is  that  of  euphonium  soloist.  He 
is  a  proficient  performer  upon  all  band  instru- 
[206] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

ments  from  cornet  to  tuba,  including  slide  trom- 
bone, his  favourites  being  the  baritone  and  the 
trombone. 

"  He  plays  many  stringed  instruments,  as  well 
as  the  piano  and  organ.  He  is  the  proud  pos- 
sessor of  a  genuine  Stradivarius  violin  — *  a  family 
heirloom  —  which  he  naturally  prizes  beyond  the 
intrinsic  value.  The  feat  of  playing  on  several 
instruments  at  once  presents  no  difficulty  to  him. 

"  This  briefly  sketches  Mr.  Mullin's  life,  charac- 
ter and  ability  as  a  musician.  His  accompanying 
photograph  reveals  his  superb  physique.  Per- 
sonally he  possesses  charming,  agreeable  manners 
and  Chesterfieldan  courteousness,  which  vastly 
contributes  to  his  popularity.  Sincere  devotion 
to  his  art  has  been  rewarded  by  that  elevating 
nobility  of  soul,  which  alone  can  penetrate  the  blue 
expanse  of  space  and  revel  in  the  music  of  the 
spheres." 

What  more  is  there  to  say?  I  can  only  assure 
the  reader  that  Mullin  stands  unique  among  all 
musicians,  creative  and  interpretative,  in  being 
able  to  play  the  organ,  many  stringed  instruments, 
and  all  the  instruments  in  a  brass  band  (several  of 
them  simultaneously;  it  would  be  interesting  to 
know  which  and  how)  after  studying  the  piano  for 
six  months.  I  sincerely  hope  that  the  mistake  he 
[207] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

made  in  withholding  all  his  compositions,  save  one, 
from  the  public,  has  been  rectified. 

Helen  Kelsey  Fox,  like  so  many  of  our  talented 
men  and  women,  has  a  European  strain  in  her 
blood.  She  is  a  lineal  descendant  on  her  mother's 
side  of  a  French  nobleman  and  a  German  princess. 
Nevertheless  she  continues  to  reside  in  Vermilion, 
Ohio.  She  is  of  a  "  decided  poetic  nature  and 
lives  in  an  atmosphere  of  her  own.  She  dwells  in 
a  world  of  thought  peopled  by  the  creations  of  an 
active  and  lyric  mentality."  She  is  so  imbued 
with  the  poetic  spark  that,  as  she  expresses  it,  she 
"  speaks  in  rhyme  half  the  time." 

John  Z.  Macdonald,  strictly  speaking,  is  not 
an  American  composer.  He  was  born  in  Scotland 
and  came  to  America  in  1881  at  the  age  of  21,  but 
as  he  is  one  of  the  very  few  composers  since  Nero 
to  enter  public  political  life  he  well  deserves  a  place 
in  this  collection.  In  1890  he  was  elected  city 
clerk  of  Brazil,  Indiana,  a  position  which  he  held 
for  seven  years.  In  1898  he  was  elected  treasurer 
of  Clay  County,  Indiana.  This  county  is  demo- 
cratic "  by  between  five  and  six  hundred  "  but  Mr. 
Macdonald  was  elected  on  the  republican  ticket 
by  a  majority  of  13B.  He  was  the  only  repub- 
lican elected.  Among  the  best  known  of  Mr.  Mac- 
donald's  compositions  is  his  famous  "  expansion  " 
[208] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

song,  in  which  he  predicted  the  fate  of  Aguinaldo. 
He  has  autograph  letters,  praising  this  song,  from 
the  late  President  McKinley,  Col.  Roosevelt,  Gen- 
eral Harrison,  Admiral  Schley,  John  Philip  Sousa 
and  other  "  eminent  gentlemen." 

Edward  Dyer,  born  in  Washington,  was  the  son 
of  a  marble  cutter  who  "  helped  to  erect  the 
U.  S.  Treasury,  Patent  Office,  and  Capitol.  .  .  . 
In  the  majority  of  his  compositions  there  is  a 
tinge  of  sadness  which  appeals  to  his  auditors. 
.  .  .  Mr.  Dyer  never  descends  to  coarseness  or 
vulgarity  in  his  productions ;  he  writes  pure,  clean 
words,  something  that  can  be  sung  in  the  home, 
school  and  on  the  stage  to  refined  respectable  peo- 
ple." 

We  learn  much  of  the  study  years  of  Mrs.  Lucy 
L.  Taggart :  "  From  earliest  childhood  she  re- 
ceived valuable  musical  instruction  from  her 
father  (Mr.  Longsdon)  who,  coming  from  England 
in  1835,  purchased  the  first  piano  that  came  to 
Chicago,  an  elegant  hand-carved  instrument  that 
is  still  treasured  in  the  old  home."  Later  "  she 
studied  under  Prof.  C.  E.  Brown,  of  Owego,  N.  Y., 
Prof.  Heimburger,  of  San  Francisco  and  Herr 
Chas.  Goffrie.  Mrs.  Taggart  was  also  for  five 
years  a  pupil  of  Senor  Arevalo,  the  famous  guitar 
soloist  of  Los  Angeles.  .  .  .  Mrs.  Taggart  has  in 
[209] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

preparation  (1902)  Methought  He  Touched  tlie 
Strings,  an  idyl  for  piano  in  memory  of  the  late 
Senor  M.  S.  Arevalo." 

David  Weidley,  born  in  Philadelphia,  is  the  com- 
poser of  the  following  songs,  Old  Spooney  Spoop- 
palay,  Jennie  Ree,  Autumn  Leaves,  Hannah  Glue, 
and  Uncle  Reuben  and  Aunt  Lucinda.  "  He  has 
done  much  to  create  and  elevate  a  taste  for  music 
in  the  community  where  he  resides  and  where  he  is 
known  as  '  Dave.'  Even  the  little  children  call 
him  *  Dave '  as  freely  and  innocently  as  those  who 
have  known  him  for  years,  and  there  can  be  no 
greater  compliment  for  any  man  than  that  he  is 
known  and  loved  by  the  children.  Mr.  Weidley  is 
by  profession  a  sheet  metal  worker.  He  is  a  P.  G. 
of  the  I.  O.  O.  F.,  and  a  P.  C.  in  the  Knights  of 
Pythias.  He  is  not  identified  with  any  church,  but 
loves  and  serves  his  fellow-men." 

In  the  biography  of  Delmer  G.  Palmer  we  are 
assured  that  "  Versatility  is  a  trait  with  which 
musical  composers  are  not  excessively  burdened. 
There  are  few  performers  who  can  include  The 
Moonlight  Sonata  and  Schubert's  Serenade  with 
selections  from  The  Merry-go-round,  and  do  jus- 
tice to  the  expression  of  each,  much  less  would 
such  adaptability  be  looked  for  among  composers. 
As  most  rules  have  exceptions,  in  this  there  is  one 
[210] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

who  stands  in  a  class  occupied  by  no  one  else,  Mr. 
Delmer  G.  Palmer,  the  '  Green  Mountain  Com- 
poser,' who  at  present  resides  in  Kansas  City. 

"  As  recently  as  1899  Mr.  Palmer  wrote  a  song 
in  the  popular  '  ragtime,'  My  Sweetheart  is  a  Mid- 
night Coon  and  almost  in  the  same  breath  also 
wrote  the  heavy  sacred  solo,  Christ  m  Gethsemane. 
The  first  is  of  the  usual  light  order  characteristic 
of  this  class  of  music.  The  latter  is  as  far  re- 
moved to  the  contrary  as  is  comedy  from  tragedy. 
The  '  coon  '  song  entered  the  bubbling  effervescing 
cauldron  of  what  is  termed  '  ragtime  '  music 
among  the  multitudinous  others,  and  soon  was  seen 
peeping  through  at  the  surface  among  the  lightest 
and  most  catchy.  .  .  .  The  sacred  solo  found  its 
level  among  the  heavier  in  its  class,  and  if  the  term 
may  be  here  applied,  it  was  also  a  hit." 

S.  Duncan  Baker,  born  August  25,  1855,  still 
lives  (1902)  in  the  old  family  residence  at  Nat- 
chez, Miss.  "  In  this  house  is  located  the  den 
where  he  has  spent  many  hours  with  his  collection 
of  banjos  and  pictures  and  in  writing  for  and 
playing  on  the  instrument  which  he  adopted  as  a 
favourite  during  its  dark  days  (about  1871)." 
We  are  told  that  he  composed  an  "  artistic  banjo 
solo,"  entitled,  Memories  of  Farland.  "  Had  this 
production  or  its  companion  piece,  Thoughts  of 
[211] 


The    Authoritative    Work 

the  Cadenza,  been  written  by  an  old  master  for 
some  other  instrument  and  later  have  been  adapted 
by  a  modern  composer  to  the  banjo,  either  or  both 
of  them  would  have  been  pronounced  classic,  bar- 
ring some  slight  defects  in  form." 

I  cannot  stop  to  quote  from  the  delightful  ac- 
counts offered  us  of  the  lives  and  works  of  Albert 
Matson,  George  D.  Tufts,  D.  O.  Loy,  Lavinia 
Pascoe  Oblad,  and  forty  or  fifty  other  American 
singers,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  I  have  done 
enough,  Mencken,  to  prove  to  you  that  the  great 
book  on  American  music  has  been  written.  With- 
out one  single  mention  of  the  names  of  Horatio 
Parker,  George  W.  Chadwick,  Frederick  Converse, 
or  Henry  Hadley,  by  a  transference  of  the  em- 
phasis to  the  place  where  it  belongs,  the  author 
of  this  undying  book  has  answered  your  prayer. 

December  11,  1917. 


Old  Days  and  New 


Old  Days  and  New 


SOME  toothless  old  sentimentalist  or  other 
periodically  sets  up  a  melancholy  howl  for 
"  the  good  old  days  of  comic  opera,"  what- 
ever or  whenever  they  were.  Perhaps  none  of  us, 
once  past  forty,  is  guiltless  in  this  respect.  Noth- 
ing, not  even  the  smell  of  an  apple-blossom  from 
the  old  homestead,  the  sight  of  a  daguerreotype  of 
a  miss  one  kissed  at  the  age  of  ten,  or  a  taste  of  a 
piece  of  the  kind  of  pie  that  "  mother  used  to 
make  "  so  arouses  the  sensibility  of  a  man  of  mid- 
dle age  as  the  memory  of  some  musical  show  which 
he  saw  in  his  budding  manhood.  That  is  why  re- 
vivals of  these  venerable  institutions  are  fre- 
quently projected  and,  some  of  them,  very  suc- 
cessfully accomplished.  When  a  manager  revives 
an  old  drama  he  must  appeal  to  the  interest  of  his 
audience ;  it  may  not  be  the  identical  interest  which 
held  the  original  spectators  of  the  piece  spell- 
bound, but,  none  the  less,  it  must  be  an  interest. 
When  a  manager  revives  an  old  musical  comedy  he 
appeals  directly  to  sentiment. 

Of  course,  the  exact  date  of  the  good  old  days 
is  a  variable  quantity.     I  have  known  a  vain  re- 
gretter  to  turn  ho  further  back  than  to  the  nights 
[215] 


Old    Days    and    New 

of  The  Merry  Widow,  The  Waltz  Dream,  The 
Chocolate  Soldier,  The  Girl  in  the  Train,  and  The 
Dollar  Princess,  in  other  words  to  the  Viennese 
renaissance;  another,  in  using  the  phrase,  is  sub- 
consciously conjuring  up  pictures  of  La  Belle 
Hettne,  Orphee  aux  Enfers,  or  La  Fille  de  Madame 
Angot,  good  fodder  for  memory  to  feed  on  here; 
a  third  will  instinctively  revert  to  the  Johann 
Strauss  operetta  period,  the  era  of  The  Queerts 
Lace  Handkerchief  and  Die  Fledermaus;  a  fourth 
cries,  "  Give  us  Gilbert  and  Sullivan !  "  A  fifth, 
when  his  ideas  are  chased  to  their  lair,  will  rhapso- 
dize endlessly  over  the  charms  of  the  London 
Gaiety  when  The  Geisha,  The  Country  Girl,  and 
The  Circus  Girl  were  in  favour;  a  sixth,  it  seems, 
finds  his  pleasure  in  Americana,  Robin  Hood, 
Wang,  The  Babes  in  Toyland,  and  El  Capi- 
tan;  a  seventh  becomes  maudlin  to  the  most 
utter  degree  when  you  mention  Les  Cloches  de 
CornevUle,  or  La  Mascotte,  products  of  a  decadent 
stage  in  the  history  of  French  opera-bouffe.  Not 
long  ago  I  heard  a  man  speak  of  the  cadet  operas 
in  Boston  (did  a  man  named  Barnet  write  them?) 
as  the  last  of  the  great  musical  pieces ;  and  every 
one  of  you  who  reads  this  essay  will  have  a 
brother,  or  a  son,  or  a  friend  who  went  to  see 
Sybil  forty-three  times  and  The  Girl  -from  Utah 
[216] 


Old    Days    and    New 

seventy-six.  Twenty  years  from  now,  as  he  sits 
before  the  open  fire,  the  mere  mention  of  They 
Wouldn't  Believe  Me  will  cause  the  tears  to  course 
down  his  cheeks  as  he  pats  the  pate  of  his  infant 
son  or  daughter  and  weepingly  describes  the  never- 
to-be-forgotten  fascination  of  Julia  Sanderson,  the 
(in  the  then  days)  unattainable  agility  of  Donald 
Brian. 

In  no  other  form  of  theatrical  entertainment  is 
the  appeal  to  softness  so  direct.  The  man  who 
attends  a  performance  of  a  musical  farce  goes  in  a 
good  mood,  usually  with  a  couple  of  friends,  or 
possibly  with  the  girl.  If  he  has  dined  well  and 
his  digestion  is  in  working  order  and  he  is  young 
enough,  the  spell  of  the  lights  and  the  music  is 
irresistible  to  his  receptive  and  impressionable 
nature.  There  are  those  young  men,  of  course, 
who  are  constant  attendants  because  of  the  alto- 
gether too  wonderful  hair  of  the  third  girl  from 
the  right  in  the  front  row.  Others  succumb  to  the 
dental  perfection  of  the  prima  donna  or  to  the 
shapely  legs  of  the  soubrette.  All  of  us,  I  am 
almost  proud  to  admit,  at  some  time  or  other,  are 
subject  to  the  contagion.  I  well  remember  the 
year  in  which  I  considered  myself  as  a  possible 
suitor  for  the  hand  of  Delia  Fox.  Photographs 
and  posters  of  this  deity  adorned  my  walls.  I  was 
[217] 


Old    Days    and    New 

an  assiduous  collector  of  newspaper  clippings  re- 
ferring to  her  profoundly  interesting  activities,  al- 
though my  sophistication  had  not  reached  the 
stage  where  I  might  appeal  to  Romeike  for  as- 
sistance. The  mere  mention  of  Miss  Fox's  name 
was  sufficient  cause  to  make  me  blush  profusely. 
Eventually  my  father  was  forced  to  take  steps  in 
the  matter  when  I  began,  in  a  valiant  effort  to 
summon  up  the  spirit  of  the  lady's  presence,  to  dis- 
turb the  early  morning  air  with  vocal  assaults  on 
She  Was  a  Daisy,  which,  you  will  surely  remem- 
ber, was  the  musical  gem  of  The  Little  Trooper. 
Here  are  the  words  of  the  refrain : 

"  She  was  a  daisy,  daisy,  daisy ! 
Driving  me  crazy,  crazy,  crazy ! 
Helen  of  Troy  and  Venus  were  to  her  cross-eyed 

crones ! 

She  was  dimpled  and  rosy,  rosy,  rosy ! 
Sweet  as  a  posy,  posy,  posy ! 
How  I  doted  upon  her,  my  Ann  Jane  Jones ! " 

You  will  admit,  I  think,  at  first  glance,  the 
superior  literary  quality  of  these  lines;  you  will 
perceive  at  once  to  what  immeasurably  higher  class 
of  art  they  belong  than  the  lyrics  that  librettists 
forge  for  us  today. 

[218] 


Old    Days    and    New 

Wall  Street  broker,  poet,  green  grocer,  soldier, 
banker,  lawyer,  whatever  you  are,  confess  the  facts 
to  yourself:  you  were  once  as  I.  You  have  suf- 
fered the  same  feelings  that  I  suffered.  Perhaps 
with  you  it  was  not  Delia  Fox.  .  .  .  Who  then? 
Did  saucy  Marie  Jansen  awaken  your  admiration  ? 
Was  pert  Lulu  Glaser  the  object  of  your  secret 
but  persistent  attention?  How  many  times  did 
you  go  to  see  Marie  Tempest  in  The  Fencing  Mas- 
ter, or  Alice  Nielsen  in  The  Serenade?  Was  Vir- 
ginia Earle  in  The  Circus  Girl  the  idol  of  your 
youth  or  was  it  Mabel  Barrison  in  The  Babes  in 
Toyland?  Theresa  Vaughn  in  1492,  May  Yohe  in 
The  Lady  Slavey,  Hilda  Hollins  in  The  Magic 
Kiss,  or  Nancy  Mclntosh  in  His  Excellency? 
Madge  Lessing  in  Jack  and  the  Beanstalk,  Edna 
May  in  The  Belle  of  New  York,  Phyllis  Rankin  in 
The  Rounders,  or  Gertrude  Quinlan  in  King  Dodo? 

What  do  you  whistle  in  your  bathtub  when  you 
are  in  a  reminiscent  mood?  Is  it  The  Typical 
Tune  of  Zanzibar,  or  Baby,  Baby,  Dance  My  Dar- 
ling Baby,  or  Starlight,  Starbright,  or  Tell  Me, 
Pretty  Maiden,  or  A  Simple  Little  String,  or 
J'aime  les  MUitaires  (if  you  whistle  this,  ten  to 
one  your  next  door  neighbour  thinks  you  have  been 
to  an  orchestra  concert  and  heard  Beethoven's 
Seventh  Symphony),  or  Sister  Mary  Jane's  Top 
[219] 


Old    Days    and    New 

Note,  or  A  Wandering  Minstrel  I,  or  See  How  It 
Sparkles,  or  the  Lullaby  from  Erminie,  which  Pau- 
line Hall  used  to  sing  as  if  she  herself 
were  asleep,  and  which  Emma  Abbott  in- 
terpolated in  The  Mikado,  or  A  Pretty  Girl, 
A  Summer  Night,  or  the  Policeman's  Chorus 
from  The  Pirates  of  Penzance,  or  The  Soldiers  m 
the  Park,  or  My  Angeline,  or  the  Letter  Song  from 
The  Chocolate  Soldier,  or  Vm  Little  Buttercup, 
or  the  Gobble  Song  from  The  Mascot,  or  the  Anna 
Song  from  Nanon,  or  the  march  from  Fatinitza, 
or  I'm  All  the  Way  from  Gay  Paree,  or  Love 
Comes  Like  a  Summer  Sigh,  or  In  the  North  Sea 
Lived  a  Whale,  or  Jusqula,  or  The  Harmless  Lit- 
tle Girlie  With  the  Downcast  Eyes,  or  They  All 
Follow  Me,  or  The  Amorous  Goldfish,  or  Don't  Be 
Cross,  or  Slumber  On,  My  Little  Gypsy  Sweet- 
heart, or  Good-bye  Flo,  or  La  Legende  de  la  Mere 
Angot,  or  My  Alamo  Love? 

There  is  a  very  subtle  and  fragrant  charm  about 
these  old  recollections  which  the  sight  or  sound  of  a 
score,  a  view  of  an  old  photograph  of  Lillian  Rus- 
sell or  Judic,  or  a  dip  in  the  Theatre  Complet  of 
Meilhac  and  Halevy  will  reawaken.  But  it  is 
only  at  a  revival  of  one  of  our  old  favourites  that 
we  can  really  bathe  in  sentimentality,  drink  in 
draughts  of  joy  from  the  past,  allow  memory  full 
[220] 


Old    Days    and    New 

sway.  You  whose  hair  is  turning  white  will  be  in 
Row  A,  Seat  No.  1  for  the  first  performance  of  a 
revival  of  Robin  Hood.  You  will  not  hear  Edwin 
Hoff  in  his  original  role ;  Jessie  Bartlett  Davis  is 
dead  and,  alas,  Henry  Clay  Barnabee  is  no  longer 
on  the  boards,  but  the  newcomers,  possibly,  are  re- 
spectable substitutes  and  the  airs  and  lines  remain. 
You  can  walk  about  in  the  lobby  and  say  proudly 
that  you  attended  the  first  performance  of  the 
opera  ever  so  long  ago  when  operettas  had  tune 
and  reason.  "  Yes  sir,  there  were  plots  in  those 
days,  and  composers,  and  the  singers  could  act. 
Times  have  certainly  changed,  sir.  Come  to  the 
corner  and  have  a  Manhattan.  .  .  .  There  were 
no  cocktails  in  those  days.  .  .  .  There  is  no  singer 
like  Mrs.  Davis  today !  " 

Well  the  poor  souls  who  cannot  feel  tenderly 
about  a  past  they  have  not  yet  experienced  have 
their  recompenses.  For  one  thing  I  am  certain 
that  the  revivals  of  the  Gilbert  and  Sullivan 
operettas  to  which  De  Wolf  Hopper  devoted  his 
best  talents  were  better,  in  many  respects,  than 
the  original  London  productions;  just  as  I  am 
equally  certain  that  the  representations  of  Aida 
at  the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  are  way  ahead 
of  the  original  performance  of  that  work  given 
at  Cairo  before  the  Khedive  of  Egypt. 
[221] 


Old    Days    and    New 

Then  there  is  the  musical  revue,  a  form  which 
we  have  borrowed  from  the  French,  but  which 
we  have  vastly  improved  upon  and  into  which 
we  have  poured  some  of  our  most  national  feel- 
ing and  expression.  The  interpretation  of  these 
frivolities  is  a  new  art.  Gaby  Deslys  may  be 
only  half  a  loaf  compared  to  Marie  Jansen,  but 
I  am  sure  that  Elsie  Janis  is  more  than  three- 
quarters.  Frank  Tinney  and  Al  Jolson  can,  in 
their  humble  way,  efface  memories  of  Digby  Bell 
and  Dan  Daly.  Adele  Rowland  and  Marie 
Dressier  have  their  points  (and  curves).  Irving 
Berlin,  Louis  A.  Hirsch,  and  Jerome  Kern  are 
not  to  be  sniffed  at.  Neither  is  P.  G.  Wodehouse. 
Harry  B.  Smith  we  have  always  with  us:  he  is 
the  Sarah  Bernhardt  of  librettists. 

Joseph  Urban  has  wrought  a  revolution  in 
stage  settings  for  this  form  of  entertainment. 
Louis  Sherwin  has  offered  us  convincing  evidence 
to  support  his  theory  that  the  new  staging  in 
America  is  coming  to  us  by  way  of  the  revue  and 
not  through  the  serious  drama.  Melville  Ellis, 
Lady  Duff-Gordon,  and  Paul  Poiret  have  done 
their  bit  for  the  dresses.  In  fact,  my  dear  young 
man  —  who  are  reading  this  article  —  you  will 
feel  just  as  tenderly  in  twenty  years  about  the 
Follies  of  1917  as  your  father  does  now  about 
[  222  ] 


Old    Days    and    New 

Wang.  Only,  and  this  is  a  very  big  ONLY,  the 
Follies  of  1917,  depending  as  it  does  entirely  on 
topical  subjects  and  dimpled  knees,  cannot  be 
revived.  Fervid  and  enlivening  as  its  immediate 
impression  may  be  it  cannot  be  lasting.  You 
can  never  recapture  the  thrills  of  this  summer  by 
sitting  in  Row  A,  Seat  No.  1  at  any  1937  reprise. 
There  can  never  be  anything  of  the  sort.  The 
revue,  like  the  firefly,  is  for  a  night  only.  We 
take  it  in  with  the  daily  papers  .  .  .  and  the  next 
season,  already  old-fashioned,  it  goes  forth  to 
show  Grinnell  and  Davenport  how  Mile.  Manhat- 
tan deported  herself  the  year  before. 

So  if  the  youth  of  these  days  chooses  to  be  sen- 
timental in  the  years  to  come  over  the  good  old 
days  of  Urban  scenery  and  Olive  Thomas,  the  Bal- 
loon Girls  of  the  Midnight  Frolic  and  the  chorus  of 
the  Winter  Garden,  he  will  be  obliged  to  give  way 
to  the  mood  at  home  in  front  of  the  fire,  see  the  pic- 
tures in  the  smoke,  and  hear  the  tunes  in  the  drop- 
ping of  the  coals.  Which  is  perhaps  as  it  should 
be.  For  in  1937  the  youth  of  that  epoch  can  sit 
in  Row  A,  Seat  No.  1  himself  and  not  be  ousted 
from  his  place  by  a  sentimental  gentleman  of  mid- 
dle age  who  longs  to  hear  Poor  Butterfly  again. 

25,  1917. 


Two  Young  American   Playwrights 

"  Gautier  had  a  theory  to  the  effect  that  to  be  a 
member  of  the  Academy  was  simply  and  solely  a 
matter  of  predestination.  '  There  is  no  need  to  do 
anything/  he  would  say,  '  and  so  far  as  the  writing  of 
books  is  concerned  that  is  entirely  useless.  A  man  is 
born  an  Academician  as  he  is  born  a  bishop  or  a 
cook.  He  can  abuse  the  Academy  in  a  dozen  pam- 
phlets if  it  amuses  himt  and  be  elected  all  the  same; 
but  if  he  is  not  predestined,  three  hundred  volumes 
and  ten  masterpieces ,  recognized  as  such  by  the  genu-~ 
flections  of  an  adoring  universe,  will  not  aid  him  to 
open  its  doors/  Evidently  Balzac  was  not  predes- 
tined but  then  neither  was  Moliere,  and  there  must 
have  been  some  consolation  for  him  in  that" 

Edgar  Saltus. 


Two  American  Playwrights 


IN  the  newspaper  reports  relating  to  the  death 
of  Auguste  Rodin  I  read  with  some  astonish- 
ment that  if  the  venerable  sculptor,  who  lacked 
three  years  of  being  eighty  when  he  died,  had  lived 
two  weeks  longer  he  would  have  been  admitted  to 
the  French  Academy !  In  other  words,  the  great- 
est stone-poet  since  Michael  Angelo,  internation- 
ally famous  and  powerful,  the  most  striking  artist 
figure,  indeed,  of  the  last  half  century,  was  to  be 
permitted,  in  the  extremity  of  old  age,  to  inscribe 
his  name  on  a  scroll,  which  bore  the  signatures  of 
many  inoffensive  nobodies.  I  could  not  have  been 
more  amused  if  the  newspapers,  in  publishing  the 
obituary  notices  of  John  Jacob  Astor,  had  an- 
nounced that  if  the  millionaire  had  not  perished 
in  the  sinking  of  the  Titanic,  his  chances  of  being 
invited  to  join  the  Elks  were  good;  or  if  "Va- 
riety "  or  some  other  tradespaper  of  the  music 
halls,  had  proclaimed,  just  before  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt's  debut  at  the  Palace  Theatre,  that  if  her 
appearances  there  were  successful  she  might  expect 
an  invitation  to  membership  in  the  White  Rats. 
.  .  .  These  hypothetical  instances  would  seem 
ridiculous  .  .  .  but  they  are  not.  The  Rodin 
[227] 


Two   American    Playwrights 

case  puts  a  by  no  means  seldom-recurring  phenom- 
enon in  the  centre  of  the  stage  under  a  calcium 
light.  The  ironclad  dreadnaughts  of  the  aca- 
demic world,  the  reactionary  artists,  the  dry-as- 
dust  lecturers  are  constantly  ignoring  the  most 
vital,  the  most  real,  the  most  important  artists' 
while  they  sing  polyphonic,  antiphonal,  Palestri- 
nian  motets  in  praise  of  men  who  have  learned  to 
imitate  comfortably  and  efficiently  the  work  of 
their  predecessors. 

If  there  are  other  contemporary  French  sculp- 
tors than  Rodin  their  names  elude  me  at  the 
moment;  yet  I  have  no  doubt  that  some  ten  or 
fifteen  of  these  hackmen  have  their  names  embla- 
zoned in  the  books  of  all  the  so-called  "  honour  " 
societies  in  Paris.  It  is  a  comfort,  on  the  whole, 
to  realize  that  America  is  not  the  only  country 
in  which  such  things  happen.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
they  happen  nowhere  more  often  than  in  France. 

If  some  one  should  ask  you  suddenly  for  a  list 
of  the  important  playwrights  of  France  today, 
what  names  would  you  let  roll  off  your  tongue, 
primed  by  the  best  punditic  and  docile  French 
critics?  Henry  Bataille,  Paul  Hervieu,  and 
Henry  Bernstein.  Possibly  Rostand.  Don't 
[228] 


Two   American   Playwrights 

deny  this ;  you  know  it  is  true,  unless  it  happens 
you  have  been  doing  some  thinking  for  yourself. 
For  even  in  the  works  of  Remy  de  Gourmont  (to 
be  sure  this  very  clairvoyant  mind  did  not  often 
occupy  itself  with  dramatic  literature)  you  will 
find  little  or  nothing  relating  to  Octave  Mirbeau 
and  Georges  Feydeau.  True,  Mirbeau  did  not  do 
his  best  work  in  the  theatre.  That  stinging,  cyn- 
ical attack  on  the  courts  of  Justice  (?)  of  France 
(nay,  the  world!),  "  Le  Jardin  de  Supplice  "  is 
not  a  play  and  it  is  probably  Mirbeau's  master- 
piece and  the  best  piece  of  critical  fiction  written  in 
France  (or  anywhere  else)  in  the  last  fifty  years. 
However  Mirbeau  shook  the  pillars  of  society  even 
in  the  playhouse.  Le  Foyer  was  hissed  repeatedly 
at  the  Theatre  Fra^ais.  Night  after  night  the 
proceedings  ended  in  the  ejection  and  arrest  of 
forty  or  fifty  spectators.  Even  to  a  mere  out- 
sider, an  idle  bystander  of  the  boulevards,  this 
complete  exposure  of  the  social,  moral,  and  polit- 
ical hypocricies  of  a  nation  seemed  exceptionally 
brutal.  Le  Foyer  and  "  Le  Jardin  "  could  only 
have  been  written  by  a  man  passionately  devoted 
to  the  human  ideal  ("  each  as  she  may,"  as  Ger- 
trude Stein  so  beautifully  puts  it).  Les  Affaires 
sont  les  Affaires  is  pure  theatre,  perhaps,  but  it 
[229] 


Two   American   Playwrights 

might  be  considered  the  best  play  produced  in 
France  between  Becque's  La  Parisierme  and 
Brieux's  Les  Hannetons. 

It  is  not  surprising,  on  the  whole,  to  find  the 
critical  tribe  turning  for  relief  from  this  some- 
what unpleasant  display  of  Gallic  closet  skeletons 
to  the  discreet  exhibition  of  a  few  carefully  chosen 
bones  in  the  plays  of  Bernstein  and  Bataille,  direct 
descendants  of  Scribe,  Sardou,  et  Cie,  but  I  may 
be  permitted  to  indulge  in  a  slight  snicker  of  polite 
amazement  when  I  discover  these  gentlemen  apply- 
ing their  fingers  to  their  noses  in  no  very  pretty- 
meaning  gesture,  directed  at  a  grandson  of 
Moliere.  For  such  is  Georges  Feydeau.  His 
method  is  not  that  of  the  Seventeenth  Century  mas- 
ter, nor  yet  that  of  Mirbeau;  nevertheless,  aside 
from  these  two  figures,  Beaumarchais,  Marivaux, 
Becque,  Brieux  at  his  best,  and  Maurice  Donnay 
occasionally,  there  has  not  been  a  single  writer  in 
the  history  of  the  French  theatre  so  inevitably  au 
courant  with  human  nature.  His  form  is  frankly 
farcical  and  his  plays  are  so  funny,  so  enjoyable 
merely  as  good  shows  that  it  seems  a  pity  to  raise 
an  obelisk  in  the  playwright's  honour,  and  yet  the 
fact  remains  that  he  understands  the  political, 
social,  domestic,  amorous,  even  cloacal  conditions 
of  the  French  better  than  any  of  his  contem- 
[230] 


Two   American   Playwrights 

poraries,  always  excepting  the  aforementioned 
Mirbeau.  In  On  Purge  Bebe  he  has  written 
saucy  variations  on  a  theme  which  Rabelais,  Boc- 
caccio, George  Moore,  and  Moliere  in  collabora- 
tion would  have  found  difficult  to  handle.  It  is 
as  successful  an  experiment  in  bravado  and  bra- 
vura as  Mr.  Henry  James's  "  The  Turn  of  the 
Screw."  And  he  has  accomplished  this  feat  with 
nimbleness,  variety,  authority,  even  (granting  the 
subject)  delicacy.  Seeing  it  for  the  first  time  you 
will  be  so  submerged  in  gales  of  uncontrollable 
laughter  that  you  will  perhaps  not  recognize  at 
once  how  every  line  reveals  character,  how  every 
situation  springs  from  the  foibles  of  human  na- 
ture. Indeed  in  this  one-act  farce  Feydeau,  with 
about  as  much  trouble  as  Zeus  took  in  transform- 
ing his  godship  into  the  semblance  of  a  swan,  has 
given  you  a  well-rounded  picture  of  middle-class 
life  in  France  with  its  external  and  internal  im- 
plications. .  .  .  And  how  he  understands  the 
buoyant  French  grue,  unselfconscious  and  undis- 
mayed in  any  situation.  I  sometimes  think  that 
Occupe-toi  d'Amelie  is  the  most  satisfactory  play 
I  have  ever  seen ;  it  is  certainly  the  most  delight- 
ful. I  do  not  think  you  can  see  it  in  Paris  again. 
The  Nouveautes,  where  it  was  presented  for  over 
a  year,  has  been  torn  down;  an  English  transla- 
[231] 


Two   American    Playwrights 

tion  would  be  an  insult  to  Feydeau;  nor  will  you 
find  essays  about  it  in  the  yellow  volumes  in  which 
the  French  critics  tenderly  embalm  their  feuitte- 
tons;  nor  do  I  think  Arthur  Symons  or  George 
Moore,  those  indefatigable  diggers  in  Parisian 
graveyards,  have  discovered  it  for  their  English 
readers.  Reading  the  play  is  to  miss  half  its 
pleasure ;  so  you  must  take  my  word  in  the  matter 
unless  you  have  been  lucky  enough  to  see  it  your- 
self, in  which  case  ten  to  one  you  will  agree  with 
me  that  one  such  play  is  worth  a  kettleful  of 
boiled-over  drama  like  Le  Voleur,  Le  Secret,  Sam- 
son, La  Vierge  Folle,  et  cetera,  et  cetera.  In  the 
pieces  I  have  mentioned  Feydeau,  in  represen- 
tation, had  the  priceless  assistance  of  a  great  comic 
artist,  Armande  Cassive.  If  we  are  to  take  Mr. 
Symons's  assurance  in  regard  to  de  Pachmann 
that  he  is  the  world's  greatest  pianist  because  he 
does  one  thing  more  perfectly  than  any  one  else, 
by  a  train  of  similar  reasoning  we  might  con- 
fidently assert  that  Mile.  Cassive  is  the  world's 
greatest  actress. 

When  you  ask  a  Frenchman  to  explain  why  he 
does  not  like  Mirbeau  (and  you  will  find  that 
Frenchmen  invariabty  do  not  like  him)  he  will 
shrug  his  shoulders  and  begin  to  tell  you  that  Mir- 
beau was  not  good  to  his  mother,  or  that  he  drank 


Two   American   Playwrights 

to  excess,  or  that  he  did  not  wear  a  red,  white,  and 
blue  coat  on  the  Fourteenth  of  July,  or  that  he 
did  not  stand  for  the  French  spirit  as  exemplified 
in  the  eating  of  snails  on  Christmas.  In  other 
words,  he  will  immediately  place  himself  in  a  posi- 
tion in  which  you  may  be  excused  for  regarding 
him  as  a  person  whose  opinion  is  worth  nothing, 
whereas  his  ratiocinatory  powers  on  subjects  with 
which  he  is  more  in  sympathy  may  be  excellent.  I 
know  why  he  does  not  like  Mirbeau.  Mirbeau  is 
the  reason.  In  his  life  he  was  not  accustomed  to 
making  compromises  nor  was  he  accustomed  to 
making  friends  (which  comes  after  all  to  the  same 
thing).  He  did  what  he  pleased,  said  what  he 
pleased,  wrote  what  he  pleased.  His  armorial 
bearings  might  have  been  a  cat  upsetting  a  cream 
jug  with  the  motto,  "  Je  m'en  fous."  The  author 
of  "  Le  Jardin  de  Supplice  "  would  not  be  in  high 
favour  anywhere;  nevertheless  I  would  willingly 
relinquish  any  claims  I  might  have  to  future  popu- 
larity for  the  privilege  of  having  been  permitted 
to  sign  this  book. 

Feydeau  is  distinctly  another  story;  his  plays 
are  more  successful  than  any  others  given  in  Paris. 
They  are  so  amusing  that  even  while  he  is  pointing 
the  finger  at  your  own  particular  method  of  living 
you  are  laughing  so  hard  that  you  haven't  time 


Two   American    Playwrights 

to  see  the  application.  ...  So  the  French  critics 
have  set  him  down  as  another  popular  figure,  only 
a  nobody  born  to  entertain  the  boulevards,  just 
as  the  American  critics  regard  the  performances 
of  Irving  Berlin  with  a  steely  supercilious  imper- 
vious eye.  The  Viennese  scorned  Mozart  because 
he  entertained  them.  "  A  gay  population,"  wrote 
the  late  John  F.  Runciman,  "  always  a  heartless 
master,  holds  none  in  such  contempt  as  the  serv- 
ants who  provide  it  with  amusement." 

The  same  condition  has  prevailed  in  England 
until  recently.  A  few  seasons  ago  you  might  have 
found  the  critics  pouring  out  their  glad  songs 
about  Arthur  Wing  Pinero  and  Henry  Arthur 
Jones.  Bernard  Shaw  has,  in  a  measure,  restored 
the  balance  to  the  British  theatre.  He  is  not  only 
a  brilliant  playwright;  he  is  a  brilliant  critic  as 
well.  Foreseeing  the  fate  of  the  under  man  in 
such  a  struggle  he  became  his  own  literary  huck- 
ster and  by  outcriticizing  the  other  critics  he  easily 
established  himself  as  the  first  English  (or  Irish) 
playwright.  When  he  thus  rose  to  the  top,  by 
dint  of  his  own  exertions,  he  had  strength  enough 
to  carry  along  with  him  a  number  of  other  im- 
portant authors.  As  a  consequence  we  may  re- 
gard the  Pinero  incident  closed  and  in  ten  years 
his  theatre  will  be  considered  as  old-fashioned  and 
[234] 


Two   American   Playwrights 

as    inadept    as    that    of    Robertson    or    Bulwer- 
Lytton. 

Having  no  Shaw  in  America,  no  man  who  can 
write  brilliant  prefaces  and  essays  about  his  own 
plays  until  the  man  in  the  street  is  obliged  per- 
force to  regard  them  as  literature,  we  find  our- 
selves in  the  condition  of  benighted  France.  Dul- 
ness  is  mistaken  for  literary  flavour;  the  injection 
of  a  little  learning,  of  a  little  poetry  (so-called) 
into  a  theatrical  hackpiece,  is  the  signal  for  a  good 
deal  of  enthusiasm  on  the  part  of  the  journalists 
(there  are  two  brilliant  exceptions).  Which  of 
our  playwrights  are  taken  seriously  by  the  pun- 
dits? Augustus  Thomas  and  Percy  MacKaye: 
Thomas  the  dean,  and  MacKaye  the  poet  laureate. 
I  have  no  intention  of  wrenching  the  laurel 
wreathes  from  these  august  brows.  Let  them  re- 
main. Each  of  these  gentlemen  has  a  long  and 
honourable  career  in  the  theatre  behind  him,  from 
which  he  should  be  allowed  to  reap  what  financial 
and  honourary  rewards  he  may  be  able.  But  I 
would  not  add  one  leaf  to  these  wreathes,  nor  one 
crotchet  to  the  songs  of  praise  which  vibrate 
around  them.  I  turn  aside  from  their  plays  in 
the  theatre  and  in  the  library  as  I  turn  aside  from 
the  fictions  of  Pierre  de  Coulevain  and  Arnpld  Ben- 
nett. 

[235] 


Two   American    Playwrights 

I  love  to  fashion  wreathes  of  my  own  and  if  two 
young  men  will  now  step  forvard  to  the  lecturer's 
bench  I  will  take  delight  in  crowning  them  with 
my  own  hands.  Will  the  young  man  at  the  back 
of  the  hall  please  page  Avery  Hopwood  and  Philip 
Moeller?  .  .  .  No  response!  They  seem  to  have 
retreated  modestly  into  the  night.  Nevertheless 
they  shall  not  escape  me! 

I  speak  of  Mr.  Hopwood  first  because  he  has 
been  writing  for  our  theatre  for  a  longer  period 
than  has  Mr.  Moeller,  and  because  his  position, 
such  as  it  is,  is  assured.  Like  Feydeau  in  France 
he  has  a  large  popular  following;  he  has  probably 
made  more  money  in  a  few  years  than  Mr.  Thomas 
has  made  during  his  whole  lifetime  and  the  man- 
agers are  always  after  him  to  furnish  them  with 
more  plays  with  which  to  fill  their  theatres.  For 
his  plays  do  fill  the  theatres.  Fair  and  Warmer, 
Nobody9 s  Widow,  Clothes,  and  Seven  Days,  would 
be  included  in  any  list  of  the  successful  pieces  pro- 
duced in  New  York  within  the  past  ten  years. 
Two  of  these  pieces  would  be  near  the  very  top 
of  such  a  list.  An  utterly  absurd  allotment  of 
actors  is  sufficient  to  explain  the  failures  of  Sadie 
Love  and  Our  Little  Wtfe  and  it  might  be  well  if 
some  one  should  attempt  a  revival  of  one  of  his 
three  serious  plays,  This  Woman  and  This  Man, 
[236] 


Two   American    Playwrights 

in  which  Carlotta  Nillson  appeared  for  a  brief 
space. 

This  author,  mainly  through  the  beneficent 
offices  of  a  gift  of  supernal  charm,  contrives  to  do 
in  English  very  much  what  Feydeau  does  in  French. 
It  is  his  contention  that  you  can  smite  the  Puri- 
tans, even  in  the  American  theatre,  squarely  on 
the  cheek,  provided  you  are  sagacious  in  your 
choice  of  weapon.  In  Fair  and  Warmer  he  pro- 
vokes the  most  boisterous  and  at  the  same  time  the 
most  innocent  laughter  with  a  scene  which  might 
have  been  made  insupportably  vulgar.  A  perfectly 
respectable  young  married  woman  gets  very  drunk 
with  the  equally  respectable  husband  of  one  of 
her  friends.  The  scene  is  the  mainstay,  the  raison 
d'etre,  of  the  play,  and  it  furnishes  the  material 
for  the  better  part  of  one  act ;  yet  young  and  old, 
rich  and  poor,  philistine  and  superman  alike,  de- 
light in  it.  To  make  such  a  situation  irresistible 
and  universal  in  its  appeal  is,  it  seems  to  me,  un- 
doubtedly the  work  of  genius.  What  might,  in- 
deed should,  have  been  disgusting,  was  not  only  in 
intention  but  in  performance  very  funny.  Let 
those  who  do  not  appreciate  the  virtuosity  of  this 
undertaking  attempt  to  write  as  successful  a  scene 
in  a  similar  vein.  Even  if  they  are  able  to  do  so, 
and  I  do  not  for  a  moment  believe  that  there  is 
[237] 


Two   American    Playwrights 

another  dramatic  author  in  America  who  can,  they 
will  be  the  first  to  grant  the  difficulty  of  the 
achievement.  With  an  apparently  inexhaustible 
fund  of  fantasy  and  wit  Mr.  Hopwood  passes  his 
wand  over  certain  phases  of  so-called  smart  life, 
almost  always  with  the  happiest  results.  With  a 
complete  realization  of  the  independence  of  his 
medium  he  often  ignores  the  realistic  conventions 
and  the  traditional  technique  of  the  stage,  but  his 
touch  is  so  light  and  joyous,  his  wit  so  free  from 
pose,  that  he  rarely  fails  to  establish  his  effect. 
His  pen  has  seldom  faltered.  Occasionally,  how- 
ever, the  heavy  hand  of  an  uncomprehending  stage 
director  or  of  an  aggressive  actor  has  played 
havoc  with  the  delicate  texture  of  his  fabric. 
There  is  no  need  here  for  the  use  of  hammer  or 
trowel;  if  an  actress  must  seek  aid  in  implements, 
let  her  rather  rely  on  a  soft  brush,  a  lacy  handker- 
chief, or  a  sparkling  spangled  fan. 

Philip  Moeller  has  achieved  distinction  in  an- 
other field,  that  of  elegant  burlesque,  of  sublimated 
caricature.  His  stage  men  and  women  are  as 
adroitly  distorted  (the  better  to  expose  their 
comic  possibilities)  as  the  drawings  of  Max  Beer- 
bohm.  Beginning  with  the  Bible  and  the  Odyssey 
(Helena's  Husband  and  Sisters  of  Susannah  for 
the  Washington  Square  Players)  he  has  at  length, 
[238] 


Two   American   Playwrights 

by  way  of  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  (The  Road- 
house  in  Arden)  arrived  at  the  Romantic  Period 
in  French  literature  and  in  Madame  Sand,  his  first 
three-act  play,  he  has  established  himself  at  once 
as  a  dangerous  rival  of  the  authors  of  Ccesar  and 
Cleopatra  and  The  Importance  of  Being  Earnest, 
both  plays  in  the  same  genre  as  Mr.  Moeller's 
latest  contribution  to  the  stage.  The  author  has 
thrown  a  very  high  light  on  the  sentimental  ad- 
ventures of  the  writing  lady  of  the  early  Nineteenth 
Century,  has  indeed  advised  us  and  convinced  us 
that  they  were  somewhat  ridiculous.  So  they  must 
have  appeared  even  to  her  contemporaries,  how- 
ever seriously  George  took  herself,  her  romances, 
her  passions,  her  petty  tragedies.  A  less  adult,  a 
less  seriously  trained  mind  might  have  fallen  into 
the  error  of  making  a  sentimental  play  out  of 
George's  affairs  with  Alfred  de  Musset,  Dr.  Pa- 
gello,  and  Chopin  (Mr.  Moeller  contents  himself 
with  these  three  passions,  selected  from  the  some- 
what more  extensive  list  offered  to  us  by  history). 
Such  an  author  would  doubtless  have  written 
Great  Catherine  in  the  style  of  Disraeli  and  Andro- 
cles  and  the  Lion  after  the  manner  of  Ben  Hur! 
Whether  love  itself  is  always  a  comic  subject,  as 
Bernard  Shaw  would  have  us  believe,  is  a  matter 
for  dispute,  but  there  can  be  no  alternative  opinion 
[239] 


Two   American   Playwrights 

about  the  loves  of  George  Sand.  A  rehearsal  of 
them  offers  only  laughter  to  any  one  but  a  senti- 
mental school  girl. 

The  piece  is  conceived  on  a  true  literary  level; 
it  abounds  in  wit,  in  fantasy,  in  delightful  sit- 
uations, but  there  is  nothing  precious  about  its 
progress.  Mr.  Moeller  has  carefully  avoided  the 
traps  expressly  laid  for  writers  of  such  plays. 
For  example,  the  enjoyment  of  Madame  Sand  is  in 
no  way  dependent  upon  a  knowledge  of  the  books 
of  that  authoress,  De  Musset,  and  Heine,  nor  yet 
upon  an  acquaintance  with  the  music  of  Liszt  and 
Chopin.  Such  matters  are  pleasantly  and  lightly 
referred  to  when  they  seem  pertinent,  but  no  in- 
sistence is  laid  upon  them.  Occasionally  our  au- 
thor has  appropriated  some  phrase  originally 
spoken  or  written  by  one  of  the  real  characters, 
but  for  that  he  can  scarcely  be  blamed.  Indeed, 
when  one  takes  into  consideration  the  wealth  of 
such  material  which  lay  in  books  waiting  for  him, 
it  is  surprising  that  he  did  not  take  more  ad- 
vantage of  it.  In  the  main  he  has  relied  on  his 
own  cleverness  to  delight  our  ears  for  two  hours 
with  brilliant  conversation. 

There  is,  it  should  be  noted,  in  conclusion,  noth- 
ing essentially  American  about  either  of  these 
young  authors.  Both  Mr.  Hopwood  and  Mr. 
[240] 


Two   American   Playwrights 

Moeller  might  have  written  for  the  foreign  stage. 
Several  of  Mr.  Hopwood's  pieces,  indeed,  have  al- 
ready been  transported  to  foreign  climes  and  there 
seems  every  reason  for  belief  that  Mr.  Moeller's 
comedy  will  meet  a  similarly  happy  fate. 

November  29, 1917. 


De  Senectute  Cantorum 

"All'eta  di  settanta 
Non  si  ama,  ne  si  canta." 

Italian  proverb. 


De  Senectute  Cantorum 


* '  "W"  AM  not  sure,"  writes  Arthur  Symons  in  his 
admirable  essay  on  Sarah  Bernhardt,  "  that 
the  best  moment  to  study  an  artist  is  not 
the  moment  of  what  is  called  decadence.  The 
first  energy  of  inspiration  is  gone;  what  remains 
is  the  method,  the  mechanism,  and  it  is  that  which 
alone  one  can  study,  as  one  can  study  the  mechan- 
ism of  the  body,  not  the  principle  of  life  itself. 
What  is  done  mechanically,  after  the  heat  of  the 
blood  has  cooled,  and  the  divine  accidents  have 
ceased  to  happen,  is  precisely  all  that  was  con- 
sciously skilful  in  the  performance  of  an  art.  To 
see  all  this  mechanism  left  bare,  as  the  form  of  a 
skeleton  is  left  bare  when  age  thins  the  flesh  upon 
it  is  to  learn  more  easily  all  that  is  to  be  learnt  of 
structure,  the  art  which  not  art  but  nature  has 
hitherto  concealed  with  its  merciful  covering." 

Mr.  Symons,  of  course,  had  an  actress  in  mind, 
but  his  argument  can  be  applied  to  singers  as  well, 
although  it  is  safest  to  remember  that  much  of 
the  true  beauty  of  the  human  voice  inevitably  de- 
parts with  the  youth  of  its  owner.  Still  style  in 
singing  is  not  noticeably  affected  by  age  and  an 
artist  who  possesses  or  who  has  acquired  this 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

quality  very  often  can  afford  to  make  lewd  ges- 
tures at  Father  Time.  If  good  singing  depended 
upon  a  full  and  sensuous  tone,  such  artists  as  Ron- 
coni,  Victor  Maurel,  Max  Heinrich,  Ludwig 
Wullner,  and  Maurice  Renaud  would  never  have 
had  any  careers  at  all.  It  is  obvious  that  any 
true  estimate  of  their  contribution  to  the  lyric 
stage  would  put  the  chief  emphasis  on  style,  and 
this  is  usually  the  explanation  for  extended  suc- 
cess on  the  opera  or  concert  stage,  although  occa- 
sionally an  extraordinary  and  exceptional  singer 
may  continue  to  give  pleasure  to  her  auditors,  de- 
spite the  fact  that  she  has  left  middle  age  behind 
her,  by  the  mere  lovely  quality  of  the  tone  she 
produces. 

In  the  history  of  opera  there  may  be  found  the 
names  of  many  singers  who  have  maintained  their 
popularity  and,  indeed,  a  good  deal  of  their  art, 
long  past  fifty,  and  there  is  recorded  at  least  one 
instance  in  which  a  singer,  after  a  long  absence 
from  the  theatre,  returned  to  the  scene  of  her 
earlier  triumphs  with  her  powers  unimpaired,  even 
augmented.  I  refer,  of  course,  to  Henrietta  Son- 
tag,  born  in  1805,  who  retired  from  the  stage  of 
the  King's  Theatre  in  London  in  1830  in  her 
twenty-fifth  year  and  who  returned  twenty  years 
later  in  184*9.  She  had,  in  the  meantime,  become 
[246] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

the  Countess  Rossi,  but  although  she  had  aban- 
doned the  stage  her  reappearance  proved  that  she 
had  not  remained  idle  during  her  period  of  retire- 
ment. For  she  was  one  of  those  artists  in  whom 
early  "  inspiration "  counted  for  little  and 
"  method  "  for  much.  She  was,  indeed,  a  mistress 
of  style.  She  came  back  to  the  public  in  Linda 
di  Chaminoux  and  H.  F.  Chorley  ("  Thirty  Years' 
Musical  Recollections  ")  tells  us  that  "  all  went 
wondrously  well.  No  magic  could  restore  to  her 
voice  an  upper  note  or  two  which  Time  had  taken ; 
but  the  skill,  grace,  and  precision  with  which  she 
turned  to  account  every  atom  of  power  she  still 
possessed, —  the  incomparable  steadiness  with 
which  she  wrought  out  her  composer's  intentions 

—  she  carried  through  the  part,  from  first  to  last, 
without  the  slightest  failure,  or  sign  of  weariness 

—  seemed  a  triumph.     She  was  greeted  —  as  she 
deserved  to  be  —  as   a  beloved  old  friend   come 
home  again  in  the  late  sunnier  days. 

"  But  it  was  not  at  the  moment  of  Madame 
Sontag's  reappearance  that  we  could  advert  to  all 
the  difficulty  which  added  to  the  honour  of  its 
success. —  She  came  back  under  musical  conditions 
entirely  changed  since  she  left  the  stage  —  to 
an  orchestra  far  stronger  than  that  which  had 
supported  her  voice  when  it  was  younger;  and  to 
[247] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

a  new  world  of  operas. —  Into  this  she  ventured 
with  an  intrepid  industry  not  to  be  overpraised  — 
with  every  new  part  enhancing  the  respect  of 
every  real  lover  of  music. —  During  the  short  pe- 
riod of  these  new  performances  at  Her  Majesty's 
Theatre,  which  was  not  equivalent  to  two  com- 
plete Opera  seasons,  not  merely  did  Madame  Son- 
tag  go  through  the  range  of  her  old  characters  — 
Susanna,  Rosina,  Desdemona,  Donna  Anna,  and 
the  like  —  but  she  presented  herself  in  seven  or 
eight  operas  which  had  not  existed  when  she  left 
the  stage  —  Bellini's  Sonnambula,  Donizetti's 
Linda,  La  Figlia  del  Reggimento,  Don  Pasquale; 
Le  Tre  Nozze,  of  Signer  Alary,  La  Tempest  a,  by 
M.  Halevy  —  the  last  two  works  involving  what 
the  French  call  '  creation,'  otherwise  the  produc- 
tion of  a  part  never  before  represented. —  In  one 
of  the  favourite  characters  of  her  predecessor,  the 
elder  artist  beat  the  younger  one  hollow. —  This 
was  as  Maria,  in  Donizetti's  La  Figlia,  which 
Mdlle.  Lind  may  be  said  to  have  brought  to  Eng- 
land, and  considered  as  her  special  property.  .  .  . 
With  myself,  the  real  value  of  Madame  Sontag 
grew,  night  after  night  —  as  her  variety,  her  con- 
scientious steadiness,  and  her  adroit  use  of  dimin- 
ished powers  were  thus  mercilessly  tested.  In  one 
respect,  compared  with  every  one  who  had  been 
[248] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

in  my  time,  she  was  alone,  in  right,  perhaps  of 
the  studies  of  her  early  days  —  as  a  singer  of 
Mozart's  music." 

It  was  after  these  last  London  seasons  that 
Mme.  Sontag  undertook  an  American  tour.  She 
died  in  Mexico. 

The  great  Mme.  Pasta's  ill-advised  return  to 
the  stage  in  1850  (when  she  made  two  belated  ap- 
pearances in  London)  is  matter  for  sadder  com- 
ment. Chorley,  indeed,  is  at  his  best  when  he 
writes  of  it,  his  pen  dipped  in  tears,  for  none  had 
admired  this  artist  in  her  prime  more  passionately 
than  he.  Here  was  a  particularly  good  oppor- 
tunity to  study  the  bare  skeleton  of  interpre- 
tative art;  the  result  is  one  of  the  most  striking 
passages  in  all  literature: 

"  Her  voice,  which  at  its  best,  had  required 
ceaseless  watching  and  practice,  had  been  long  ago 
given  up  by  her.  Its  state  of  utter  ruin  on  the 
night  in  question  passes  description. —  She  had 
been  neglected  by  those  who,  at  least,  should  have 
presented  her  person  to  the  best  advantage  ad- 
mitted by  Time. —  Her  queenly  robes  (she  was  to 
sing  some  scenes  from  Anna  Bolena)  in  nowise 
suited  or  disguised  her  figure.  Her  hair-dresser 
had  done  some  tremendous  thing  or  other  with  her 
head  —  or  rather  had  left  everything  undone.  A 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

more  painful  and  disastrous  spectacle  could  hardly 
be  looked  on. —  There  were  artists  present,  wh:> 
had  then,  for  the  first  time,  to  derive  some  impres- 
sion of  a  renowned  artist  —  perhaps,  with  the 
natural  feeling  that  her  reputation  had  been  ex- 
aggerated.—  Among  these  was  Rachel  —  whose 
bitter  ridicule  of  the  entire  sad  show  made  itself 
heard  throughout  the  whole  theatre,  and  drew  at- 
tention to  the  place  where  she  sat  —  one  might 
even  say,  sarcastically  enjoying  the  scene. 
Among  the  audience,  however,  was  another  gifted 
woman,  who  might  far  more  legitimately  have 
been  shocked  at  the  utter  wreck  of  every  musical 
means  of  expression  in  the  singer  —  who  might 
have  been  more  naturally  forgiven,  if  some  humour 
of  self-glorification  had  made  her  severely  just  — 
not  worse  —  to  an  old  prvma  donna;  —  I  mean 
Madame  Viardot. —  Then,  and  not  till  then,  she 
was  hearing  Madame  Pasta. —  But  Truth  will  al- 
ways answer  to  the  appeal  of  Truth.  Dismal  as 
was  the  spectacle  —  broken,  hoarse,  and  destroyed 
as  was  the  voice  —  the  great  style  of  the  singer 
spoke  to  the  great  singer.  The  first  scene  was 
Ann  Boleyn's  duet  with  Jane  Seymour.  The  old 
spirit  was  heard  and  seen  in  Madame  Pasta's 
Sorgi!  and  the  gesture  with  which  she  signed  to 
[250] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

her  penitent  rival  to  rise.  Later,  she  attempted 
the  final  mad  scene  of  the  opera  —  that  most  com- 
plicated and  brilliant  among  the  mad  scenes  on 
the  modern  musical  stage  —  with  its  two  cantabile 
movements,  its  snatches  of  recitative,  and  its  bra- 
vura of  despair,  which  may  be  appealed  to  as  an 
example  of  vocal  display,  till  then  unparagoned, 
when  turned  to  the  account  of  frenzy,  not  frivolity 

—  perhaps  as  such  commissioned  by  the  superb 
creative  artist. —  By  that  time,  tired,  unprepared, 
in  ruin  as  she  was,  she  had  rallied  a  little.     When 

—  on  Ann  Boleyn's  hearing  the  coronation  music 
of  her  rival,   the   heroine   searches   for   her   own 
crown  on  her  brow  —  Madame  Pasta  turned  in  the 
direction  of  the  festive  sounds,  the  old  irresistible 
charm  broke  out ;  —  nay,  even  in  the  final  song, 
with  its  roulades,  and  its  scales  of  shakes,  ascend- 
ing by  a  semi-tone,  the  consummate  vocalist  and 
tragedian,  able  to  combine  form  with  meaning  — 
the  moment  of  the  situation,  with  such  personal 
and  musical  display  as  form  an  integral  part  of 
operatic  art  —  was  indicated :  at  least  to  the  ap- 
prehension of  a  younger  artist. — *  You  are  right ! ' 
was    Madame   Viardot's   quick   and   heartfelt   re- 
sponse (her  eyes  were  full  of  tears)   to  a  friend 
beside  her  — '  You  are  right !     It  is  like  the  Cena- 

[251] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

colo  of  Da  Vinci  at  Milan  —  a  wreck  of  a  picture, 
but  the  picture  is  the  greatest  picture  in  the 
world!'" 

The  great  Mme.  Viardot  herself,  whose  intract- 
able voice  and  noble  stage  presence  inevitably  re- 
mind one  of  Mme.  Pasta,  took  no  chances  with 
fate.  The  friend  of  Alfred  de  Musset,  the  model 
for  George  Sand's  "  Consuelo,"  the- "  creator  "  of 
Fides  in  Le  Prophete,  and  the  singer  who,  in  the 
revival  of  Orpkie  at  the  Theatre  Lyrique  in  1859, 
resuscitated  Gluck's  popularity  in  Paris,  retired 
from  the  opera  stage  in  1863  at  the  age  of  43, 
shortly  after  she  had  appeared  in  Alceste!  (She 
sang  in  concert  occasionally  until  1870  or  later.) 
Thereafter  she  divided  her  time  principally  be- 
tween Baden  and  Paris  and  became  the  great 
friend  of  Turgeniev.  His  very  delightful  letters 
to  her  have  been  published.  Idleness  was  abhor- 
rent to  this  fine  woman  and  in  her  middle  and  old 
age  she  gave  lessons,  while  singers,  composers,  and 
conductors  alike  came  to  her  for  help  and  advice. 
She  died  in  1910  at  the  age  of  89.  Her  less  cele- 
brated brother,  Manuel  Garcia  (less  celebrated  as 
a  singer;  as  a  teacher  he  is  given  the  credit  for 
having  restored  Jenny  Lind's  voice.  Among  his 
other  pupils  Mathilde  Marchesi  and  Marie  Tem- 
pest may  be  mentioned),  had  died  in  1906  at  the 
[252] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

age  of  101.  Her  sister,  Mme.  Malibran,  died  very 
young,  in  the  early  Nineteenth  Century,  before,  in 
fact,  Mme.  Viardot  had  made  her  debut. 

Few  singers  have  had  the  wisdom  to  follow  Mme. 
Viardot's  excellent  example.  The  great  Jenny 
Lind,  long  after  her  voice  had  lost  its  quality,  con- 
tinued to  sing  in  oratorio  and  concert.  So  did 
Adelina  Patti.  Muriel  Starr  once  told  me  of  a  par- 
rot she  encountered  in  Australia.  The  poor  bird 
had  arrived  at  the  noble  age  of  117  and  was  en- 
tirely bereft  of  feathers.  Flapping  his  stumpy 
wings  he  cried  incessantly,  "  I'll  fly,  by  God,  I'll 
fly !  "  So,  many  singers,  having  lost  their  voices, 
continue  to  croak,  "  I'll  sing,  by  God,  I'll  sing !  " 
The  Earl  of  Mount  Edgcumbe,  himself  a  man  of 
considerable  years  when  he  published  his  highly 
diverting  "  Musical  Reminiscences,"  gives  us  some 
extraordinary  pictures  of  senility  on  the  stage  at 
the  close  of  the  Eighteenth  Century.  There  was, 
for  example,  the  case  of  Cecilia  Davis,  the  first 
Englishwoman  to  sustain  the  part  of  prima  donna 
and  in  that  situation  was  second  only  to  Gabrielli, 
whom  she  even  rivalled  in  neatness  of  execution. 
Mount  Edgcumbe  found  Miss  Davies  in  Florence, 
unengaged  and  poor.  A  concert  was  arranged  at 
which  she  appeared  with  her  sister.  Later  she  re- 
turned to  England  .  .  .  too  old  to  secure  an  en- 
[253] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

gagement.  "  This  unfortunate  woman  is  now  (in 
1834)  living  in  London,  in  the  extreme  of  old  age, 
disease,  and  poverty,"  writes  the  Earl.  He  also 
speaks  of  a  Signora  Galli,  of  large  and  masculine 
figure  and  contralto  voice,  who  frequently  filled  the 
part  of  second  man  at  the  Opera.  She  had  been 
a  principal  singer  in  Handel's  oratorios  when  con- 
ducted by  himself.  She  afterwards  fell  into  ex- 
treme poverty,  and  at  the  age  of  about  seventy 
(  !!!!),  was  induced  to  come  forward  to  sing  again 
at  the  oratorios.  "  I  had  the  curiosity  to  go,  and 
heard  her  sing  He  was  despised  and  rejected  of 
men  in  The  Messiah.  Of  course  her  voice  was 
cracked  and  trembling,  but  it  was  easy  to  see  her 
school  was  good ;  and  it  was  a  pleasure  to  observe 
the  kindness  with  which  she  was  received  and  lis- 
tened to;  and  to  mark  the  animation  and  delight 
with  which  she  seemed  to  hear  again  the  music  in 
which  she  had  formerly  been  a  distinguished  per- 
former. The  poor  old  woman  had  been  in  the 
habit  of  coming  to  me  annually  for  a  trifling 
present;  and  she  told  me  on  that  occasion  that 
nothing  but  the  severest  distress  should  have  com- 
pelled her  so  to  expose  herself,  which  after  all,  did 
not  answer  to  its  end,  as  she  was  not  paid  accord- 
ing to  her  agreement.  She  died  shortly  after." 
In  1783  the  Earl  heard  a  singer  named  Allegranti 
[254] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

in  Dresden,  then  at  the  height  of  her  powers. 
Later  she  returned  to  England  and  reappeared  in 
Cimarosa's  Matrimonio  Segreto.  "  Never  was 
there  a  more  pitiable  attempt:  she  had  scarcely  a 
thread  of  voice  remaining,  nor  the  power  to  sing 
a  note  in  tune :  her  figure  and  acting  were  equally 
altered  for  the  worse,  and  after  a  few  nights  she 
was  obliged  to  retire  and  quit  the  stage  alto- 
gether." The  celebrated  Madame  Mara,  after  a 
long  sojourn  in  Russia,  suddenly  returned  to  Eng- 
land and  was  announced  for  a  benefit  performance 
at  the  King's  Theatre  after  everybody  had  for- 
gotten her  existence.  "  She  must  have  been  at 
least  seventy ;  but  it  was  said  that  her  voice  had 
miraculously  returned,  and  was  as  good  as  ever. 
But  when  she  displayed  those  wonderfully  revived 
powers,  they  proved,  as  might  have  been  expected, 
lamentably  deficient,  and  the  tones  she  produced 
were  compared  to  those  of  a  penny  trumpet. 
Curiosity  was  so  little  excited  that  the  concert 
was  ill  attended  .  .  .  and  Madame  Mara  was 
heard  no  more.  I  was  not  so  lucky  (or  so  un- 
lucky) as  to  hear  these  her  last  notes,  as  it  was 
early  in  the  winter,  and  I  was  not  in  town.  She 
returned  to  Russia,  and  was  a  great  sufferer  by 
the  burning  of  Moscow.  After  that  she  lived  at 
Mitlau,  or  some  other  town  near  the  Baltic,  where 
[255] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

she  died  at  a  great  age,  not  many  years  ago." 

Here  is  Michael  Kelly's  account  of  the  same 
event :  "  With  all  her  great  skill  and  knowledge 
of  the  world,  Madame  Mara  was  induced,  by  the 
advice  of  some  of  her  mistaken  friends,  to  give  a 
public  concert  at  the  King's  Theatre,  in  her 
seventy-second  year,  when,  in  the  course  of  nature 
her  powers  had  failed  her.  It  was  truly  grievous 
to  see  such  transcendent  talents  as  she  once  pos- 
sessed, so  sunk  —  so  fallen.  I  used  every  effort  in 
my  power  to  prevent  her  committing  herself,  but  in 
vain.  Among  other  arguments  to  draw  her  from 
her  purpose,  I  told  her  what  happened  to  Mon- 
belli,  one  of  the  first  tenors  of  his  day,  who  lost 
all  his  well-earned  reputation  and  fame,  by  rashly 
performing  the  part  of  a  lover,  at  the  Pergola 
Theatre,  at  Florence,  in  his  seventieth  year,  having 
totally  lost  his  voice.  On  the  stage,  he  was  hissed ; 
and  the  following  lines,  lampooning  his  attempt, 
were  chalked  on  his  house-door,  as  well  as  upon 
the  walls  of  the  city :  — 

'  All'  eta  di  settanta 
Non  si  ama,  ne  si  cant  a.9 ' 

W.  T.  Parke,  forty  years  principal  oboe  player 
at  Covent  Garden  Theatre,  is  kinder  to  Madame 
[256] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

Mara  in  his  "  Musical  Memoirs,"  but  it  must  be 
taken  into  account  that  he  is  kinder  to  every  one 
else,  too.  There  is  little  of  the  acrimonious  or  the 
fault-finding  note  in  his  pages.  This  is  his  version 
of  the  affair :  "  That  extraordinary  singer  of 
former  days,  Madame  Mara,  who  had  passed  the 
last  eighteen  years  in  Russia,  and  who  had  lately 
arrived  in  England,  gave  a  concert  at  the  King's 
Theatre  on  the  6th  of  March  (1820),  which  highly 
excited  the  curiosity  of  the  musical  public.  On 
that  occasion  she  sang  some  of  her  best  airs ;  and 
though  her  powers  were  greatly  inferior  to  what 
they  were  in  her  zenith,  yet  the  same  pure  taste 
pervaded  her  performance.  Whether  vanity  or 
interest  stimulated  Mara  at  her  time  of  life  to  that 
undertaking,  it  would  be  difficult  to  determine ;  but 
whichsoever  had  the  ascendency,  her  reign  was 
short ;  for  by  singing  one  night  afterwards  at  the 
vocal  concert,  the  veil  which  had  obscured  her 
judgment  was  removed,  and  she  retired  to  enjoy 
in  private  life  those  comforts  which  her  rare  talent 
had  procured  for  her." 

Parke  also  speaks  of  a  Mrs.  Pinto,  "  the  once 
celebrated  Miss  Brent,  the  original  Mandane  in 
Arne's  Artaxerxes"  who  appeared  in  1785  at  the 
age  of  nearly  seventy  in  Milton's  Mask  of  Comus 
at  a  benefit  for  a  Mr.  Hull,  "  the  respectable  stage- 
[257] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

manager  of  Covcnt  Garden  Theatre."  She  was  to 
sing  the  song  of  Sweet  Echo  and  as  Parke  was  to 
play  the  responses  to  her  voice  on  the  oboe  he  re- 
paired to  her  house  for  rehearsal.  "  Although 
nearly  seventy  years  old,  her  voice  possessed  the 
remains  of  those  qualities  for  which  it  had  been  so 
much  celebrated, —  power,  flexibility,  and  sweet- 
ness. On  the  night  Comus  was  performed  she 
sung  with  an  unexpected  degree  of  excellence,  and 
was  loudly  applauded.  This  old  lady,  as  a 
singer,  gave  me  the  idea  of  a  fine  piece  of  ruins, 
which  though  considerably  dilapidated,  still  dis- 
played some  of  its  original  beauties." 

The  celebrated  Faustina,  whose  quarrel  with 
Cuzzoni  is  as  famous  in  the  history  of  music  as  the 
war  between  Gluck  and  Piccinni,  was  less  daring. 
Dr.  Buraey  visited  her  when  she  was  seventy-two 
years  old  and  asked  her  to  sing.  "  Alas,  I  can- 
not," she  replied,  "  I  have  lost  all  my  faculties." 

La  Camargo,  the  favourite  dancer  of  Paris  in 
the  early  Eighteenth  Century,  the  inventor,  in- 
deed of  the  short  ballet  skirt,  and  the  possessor  of 
many  lovers,  retired  from  the  stage  in  1751  with 
a  large  fortune,  besides  a  pension  of  fifteen  hun- 
dred francs.  Thenceforth  she  led  a  secluded  life. 
She  was  an  assiduous  visitor  to  the  poor  of  her 
parish  and  she  kept  a  dozen  dogs  and  an  angora 
[258] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

cat  which  she  overwhelmed  with  affection.  In  that 
quaint  book,  "  The  Powder  Puff,"  by  Franz  Blei, 
you  may  find  a  most  charming  description  of  a 
call  paid  to  the  lady  in  1768  in  her  little  old  house 
in  the  Rue  St.  Thomas  du  Louvre,  by  Duclos, 
Grimm,  and  Helvetius,  who  had  come  in  bantering 
mood  to  ask  her  whom,  in  her  past  life,  she  had 
loved  best.  Her  reply  touched  these  men,  who 
took  their  leave.  "  Helvetius  told  Camargo's 
story  to  his  wife ;  Grimm  made  a  note  of  it  for  his 
Court  Journal ;  and  as  for  Duclos,  it  suggested 
some  moral  reflections  to  him,  for  when,  two  years 
later,  Mile.  Marianne  Camargo  was  carried  to  her 
grave,  he  remarked :  '  It  is  quite  fitting  to  give 
her  a  white  pall  like  a  virgin.'  " 

Sophie  Arnould,  one  of  the  most  celebrated  ac- 
tresses and  singers  of  the  Eightenth  Century,  died 
in  poverty  at  the  age  of  63  and  there  is  no  rec- 
ord of  her  burial  place.  She  had  been  the  friend 
of  Voltaire,  Rousseau,  d'Alembert,  Diderot,  Hel- 
vetius, and  the  Baron  d'Holbach.  She  had  "  cre- 
ated "  Gluck's  Iphigenie  en  Aulide  and  the  com- 
poser had  said  of  her,  "  If  it  had  not  been  for  the 
voice  and  elocution  of  Mile.  Arnould,  my  Iphige- 
nie would  never  have  been  performed  in  France." 
In  her  youth  she  had  interested  not  only  Marie 
Antoinette  but  also  the  King,  and  she  had  been 
[259] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

the  object  of  Mme.  de  Pompadour's  suspicion  and 
Mme.  du  Barry's  rage.  Garrick  declared  her  a 
better  actress  than  Clairon.  She  was  as  famous 
for  her  wit  as  for  her  singing  and  acting.  When 
Mme.  Laguerre  appeared  drunk  in  Iphigenie  en 
Tauride  she  exclaimed,  "  Why  this  is  Iphigenie  en 
Champagne! "  Indeed,  she  made  so  many  re- 
marks worthy  of  preservation  that  shortly  after 
her  death  in  1802,  a  book  called  "  Arnoldiana," 
devoted  to  her  epigrams,  was  issued.  .  .  .  Never- 
theless, this  lady  was  hissed  at  the  age  of  36,  when, 
after  a  short  absence  from  the  stage  she  reap- 
peared as  Iphigenie  in  1776.  She  was  neither  old 
nor  ugly  and  if  her  voice  may  have  lost  something 
her  nineteen  years  of  stage  life  in  Paris  might 
have  weighed  against  that.  On  one  occasion,  ac- 
cording to  La  Harpe,  when  she  had  the  line  to  sing, 
"  You  long  for  me  to  be  gone,"  the  audience  ap- 
plauded vociferously.  To  protect  Sophie,  Marie 
Antoinette  sat  in  a  box  on  several  nights  and 
stemmed  the  storm  of  disapproval,  but  in  the  end 
even  the  presence  of  the  queen  herself  was  insuf- 
ficient to  quell  the  hissing.  One  sad  story  com- 
pletes the  picture.  In  1785,  when  her  financial 
troubles  were  beginning,  her  two  sons,  who  bore 
her  no  love,  called  for  money.  She  had  none  to 
give  them.  "  There  are  two  horses  left  in  the 
[260] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

stable,"  she  said.  "Take  those."  They  rode 
away  on  the  horses. 

Latin  audiences  are  notoriously  unfaithful  to 
their  stage  favourites.  In  "  The  Innocents 
Abroad  "  Mark  Twain  tells  us  of  the  bad  manners 
of  an  Italian  audience.  The  singer  he  mentions 
is  Erminia  Frezzolini,  born  at  Orvieto  in  1818. 
She  sang  both  in  England  and  America.  Chorley 
said  of  her:  "  She  was  an  elegant,  tall  woman, 
born  with  a  lovely  voice,  and  bred  with  great  vocal 
skill  (of  a  certain  order)  ;  but  she  was  the  first 
who  arrived  of  the  '  young  Italians  ' —  of  those 
who  fancy  that  driving  the  voice  to  its  extremities 
can  stand  in  the  stead  of  passion.  But  she  was, 
nevertheless,  a  real  singer,  and  her  art  stood  her 
in  stead  for  some  years  after  nature  broke  down. 
When  she  had  left  her  scarce  a  note  of  her  rich  and 
real  soprano  voice  to  scream  with,  Madame  Frez- 
zolini was  still  charming."  She  died  in  Paris, 
November  5,  1884.  Now  for  Mark  Twain: 

"  I  said  I  knew  nothing  against  the  upper  classes 
from  personal  observation.  I  must  recall  it.  I 
had  forgotten.  What  I  saw  their  bravest  and 
their  fairest  do  last  night,  the  lowest  multitude 
that  could  be  scraped  out  of  the  purlieus  of  Chris- 
tendom would  blush  to  do,  I  think.  They  assem- 
bled by  hundreds,  and  even  thousands,  in  the  great 
[261] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

Theatre  of  San  Carlo  to  do  —  what?  Why  sim- 
ply to  make  fun  of  an  old  woman  —  to  deride,  to 
hiss,  to  jeer  at  an  actress  they  once  worshipped, 
but  whose  beauty  is  faded  now,  and  whose  voice 
has  lost  its  former  richness.  Everybody  spoke  of 
the  rare  sport  there  was  to  be.  They  said  the 
theatre  would  be  crammed  because  Frezzolini  was 
going  to  sing.  It  was  said  she  could  not  sing  well 
now,  but  then  the  people  liked  to  see  her,  anyhow. 
And  so  we  went.  And  every  time  the  woman  sang 
they  hissed  and  laughed  —  the  whole  magnificent 
house  —  and  as  soon  as  she  left  the  stage  they 
called  her  on  again  with  applause.  Once  or  twice 
she  was  encored  five  and  six  times  in  succession, 
and  received  with  hisses  when  she  appeared,  and 
discharged  with  hisses  and  laughter  when  she  had 
finished  —  then  instantly  encored  and  insulted 
again!  And  how  the  high-born  knaves  enjoyed 
it!  White-kidded  gentlemen  and  ladies  laughed 
till  the  tears  came,  and  clapped  their  hands  in 
very  ecstasy  when  that  unhappy  old  woman  would 
come  meekly  out  for  the  sixth  time,  with  uncom- 
plaining patience,  to  meet  a  storm  of  hisses !  It 
was  the  cruellest  exhibition  —  the  most  wanton, 
the  most  unfeeling.  The  singer  would  have  con- 
quered an  audience  of  American  rowdies  by  her 
brave,  unflinching  tranquillity  (for  she  answered 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

encore  after  encore,  and  smiled  and  bowed  pleas- 
antly, and  sang  the  best  she  possibly  could,  and 
went  bowing  off,  through  all  the  jeers  and  hisses, 
without  ever  losing  countenance  or  temper)  ;  and 
surely  in  any  other  land  than  Italy  her  sex  and  her 
helplessness  must  have  been  an  ample  protection 
for  her  —  she  could  have  needed  no  other.  Think 
what  a  multitude  of  small  souls  were  crowded  into 
that  theatre  last  night !  " 

English  audiences,  on  the  other  hand,  are  noto- 
riously friendly  to  their  old  favourites.  When  Dr. 
Hanslick,  the  Viennese  critic,  visited  England  and 
heard  Sims  Reeves  singing  before  crowded  houses 
as  he  had  been  doing  for  forty  or  fifty  years,  he 
remarked,  "  It  is  not  easy  to  win  the  favour  of  the 
English  public ;  to  lose  it  is  quite  impossible." 

Mme.  Grisi  made  her  last  appearance  in  London 
in  1866  at  the  theatre  she  had  left  twenty  years 
previously,  Her  Majesty's.  The  opera  was  Lu- 
crezia  Borgia.  At  the  end  of  the  first  act  she 
miscalculated  the  depth  of  the  apron  and  the  de- 
scending curtain  left  her  outside  on  her  knees. 
She  had  stiffness  in  her  joints  and  was  unable  to 
rise  without  assistance.  .  .  .  This  situation  must 
have  been  very  embarassing  to  a  singer  who  pre- 
viously had  been  an  idol  of  the  public.  In  the  pas- 
sionate duet  with  the  tenor  she  made  an  unsuccess- 
[263] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

ful  attempt  to  reach  the  A  natural.  Notwith- 
standing the  fact  that  she  was  well  received  and 
that  she  got  through  with  the  greater  part  of  the 
opera  with  credit,  her  impressario,  J.  H.  Maple- 
son,  relates  in  his  "  Memoirs  "  that  after  the  final 
curtain  had  fallen  she  rushed  to  tell  him  that  it 
was  all  over  and  that  she  would  never  appear 
again.  In  "  Student  and  Singer  "  Charles  Sant- 
ley  writes  of  the  occasion :  "  I  had  been  singing 
at  the  Crystal  Palace  concert  in  the  afternoon, 
and  after  dining  there  I  went  up  to  the  theatre 
to  see  a  little  of  the  performance.  I  felt  very 
sorry  for  Grisi  that  she  had  been  induced  to  appear 
again ;  it  was  a  sad  sight  for  any  one  who  had 
known  her  in  her  prime,  and  even  long  past  it." 

However,  even  English  audiences  can  be  cold. 
John  E.  Cox,  in  his  "  Musical  Recollections,"  re- 
calls an  earlier  occasion  when  Grisi  sang  at  the 
Crystal  Palace  without  much  success  (July  31, 
1861)  :  "  On  retiring  from  the  orchestra,  after  a 
peculiarly  cold  reception  —  as  unkind  as  it  was  in- 
considerate, seeing  what  the  career  of  this  remark- 
able woman  had  been  —  there  was  not  a  single  per- 
son at  the  foot  of  the  orchestra  to  receive  or  to 
accompany  her  to  her  retiring  room !  I  could  im- 
agine what  her  feelings  at  that  moment  must  have 
been  —  she  who  had  in  former  years  been  accus- 
[264] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

tomed  to  be  thronged,  wherever  she  appeared,  and 
to  be  the  recipient  of  adulation  —  often  as  exag- 
gerated as  it  was  fulsome  —  but  who  was  now 
literally  deserted.  With  Grisi  —  although  I  had 
been  once  or  twice  introduced  to  her  —  I  never  had 
any  personal  acquaintance.  I  could  not,  however, 
resist  the  impulse  of  preceding  her,  without  ob- 
truding myself  on  her  notice,  and  opening  the  door 
of  the  retiring  room  for  her,  which  was  situated  at 
some  considerable  distance  from  the  orchestra. 
Her  look  as  I  did  this,  and  she  passed  out  of  sight, 
is  amongst  the  most  painful  of  my  '  Recollec- 
tions.' " 

German  audiences  are  usually  kind  to  their 
favourites.  In  America  we  adopt  neither  the  at- 
titude of  the  English  and  Germans,  nor  yet  that 
of  the  Italians  and  French.  We  simply  stay  away 
from  the  theatre.  Mark  Twain  has  put  it  suc- 
cinctly, "  When  a  singer  has  lost  Jn's  voice  and  a 
jumper  his  legs,  those  parties  fail  to  draw." 

Benjamin  Lumley  in  his  "  Reminiscences  of  the 
Opera,"  quoting  an  anonymous  friend,  relates  a 
touching  story  regarding  Catalani,  who  was  born 
in  1779  and  who  retired  from  the  stage  in  1831. 
When  Jenny  Lind  visited  Paris  in  the  spring  of 
1849  she  learned  to  her  astonishment  that  Cata- 
lani was  in  the  French  capital.  The  old  singer, 
[265] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

who  resided  habitually  in  Florence,  had  come  to 
Paris  with  her  daughter  who,  as  the  widow  of  a 
Frenchman,  was  obliged  to  go  through  certain 
legal  forms  before  taking  possession  of  her  share 
of  her  husband's  property.  Through  a  friend  of 
both  ladies  it  was  arranged  that  the  two  should 
meet  at  a  dinner  at  the  home  of  the  Marquis  of 
Normansby,  tho  Knglish  ambassador  to  the  Tus- 
can court,  but  the  Swedish  singer  could  not  re- 
strain her  impatience  and  before  that  event  she 
set  out  one  forenoon  for  Mme.  Catalani's  apart- 
ment in  the  Rue  de  la  Paix  and  sent  in  her  name 
by  a  servant.  The  old  singer  hastened  out  to 
greet  her  distinguished  visitor  with  obvious  de- 
light. She  had  known  nothing  of  Mile.  Lind's 
presence  in  Paris  and  had  feared  that  such  a 
chance  would  never  befall  her,  much  as  she  had 
longed  to  see  the  celebrated  singer  who  had  ex- 
cited the  English  public  in  a  way  which  recalled 
her  own  past  triumphs  and  who  rivalled  her  in  her 
purity  and  her  charity.  They  talked  together 
for  an  hour.  .  .  .  At  the  dinner  the  Marchioness 
of  Normansby  considerately  refrained  from  asking 
Jenny  Lind  to  sing,  because  no  one  is  allowed  to 
refuse  such  an  invitation  made  by  a  representative 
of  royalty.  Catalani,  however,  had  no  such  scru- 
ples. She  went  up  to  the  Nightingale  and  begged 
[266] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

her  to  sing,  adding,  "  C'est  la  mettle  Catalini  qui 
desire  vous  entendre  chanter,  avant  de  mourir!  " 
This  appeal  was  irresistible.  Jenny  Lind  sat 
down  to  the  piano  and  sang  Non  credea 
mirarti  and  one  or  two  other  airs,  including  Ah! 
non  giunge.  Catalan!  is  described  as  sitting  on 
an  ottoman  in  the  centre  of  the  room,  rocking  her 
body  to  and  fro  with  delight  and  sympathy,  mur- 
muring, "  Ah  la  betta  cosa  die  la  musica,  quando 
si  fa  di  quella  maniera!  "  and  again  "  Ah!  la  car- 
issima!  quanta  bettissima!  "  A  dinner  at  Cata- 
lani's  apartment  followed,  but  a  few  days  later  it 
became  known  that  the  old  singer  was  ill,  an  ill- 
ness which  proved  fatal.  She  had,  however, 
heard  the  Swedish  Nightingale  sing  "  avant  de 
mourir." 

William  Gardiner  visited  Madame  Catalani  in 
1846.  "  I  was  surprised  at  the  vigour  of  Madame 
Catalani,"  he  says,  "  and  how  little  she  has  al- 
tered since  I  saw  her  in  Derby  in  1828.  I  paid 
her  a  compliment  on  her  good  looks.  *  Ah,'  said 
she,  '  I'm  sixty-six ! '  She  has  lost  none  of  that 
commanding  expression  which  gave  her  such  dig- 
nity on  the  stage.  She  is  without  a  wrinkle,  and 
appears  to  be  no  more  than  forty.  Her  breadth 
of  chest  is  still  remarkable:  it  is  this  which  en- 
dowed her  with  the  finest  voice  that  ever  sang. 
[267] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

Her  speaking  voice   and   dramatic   air   are   still 
charming,  and  not  in  the  least  impaired." 

Is  Christine  Nilsson  still  alive?  I  think  so. 
She  was  born  August  20,  1843.  In  Clara  Louise 
Kellogg's  very  entertaining,  but  not  always  trust- 
worthy, "  Memoirs  "  there  is  an  interesting  refer- 
ence to  this  singer  in  her  later  career.  Dates,  un- 
fortunately, are  not  furnished.  "  I  was  present," 
declares  M me.  Kellogg,  "  on  the  night  .  .  .  when 
she  practically  murdered  the  high  register  of  her 
voice.  She  had  five  upper  notes  the  quality  of 
which  was  unlike  any  other  I  ever  heard  and  that 
possessed  a  peculiar  charm.  The  tragedy  hap- 
pened during  a  performance  of  The  Magic  Flute 
in  London.  .  .  .  Nilsson  was  the  Queen  of  the 
Night,  one  of  her  most  successful  early  roles. 
The  second  aria  in  The  Magic  Flute  is  more  fa- 
mous and  less  difficult  than  the  first  aria,  and  also, 
more  effective.  Nilsson  knew  well  the  ineffective- 
ness of  the  ending  of  the  first  aria  in  the  two  weak- 
est notes  of  a  soprano's  voice,  A  natural  and  B 
flat.  I  never  could  understand  why  a  master  like 
Mozart  should  have  chosen  to  use  them  as  he  did. 
There  is  no  climax  to  the  song.  One  has  to  climb 
up  hard  and  fast  and  then  stop  short  in  the  middle. 
It  is  an  appalling  thing  to  do  and  that  night 
Nilsson  took  those  two  notes  at  the  last  in  chest 
[268] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

tones.  '  Great  heavens ! '  I  gasped,  '  what  is  she 
doing?  What  is  the  woman  thinking  of!'  Of 
course  I  knew  she  was  doing  it  to  get  volume  and 
vibration  and  to  give  that  trying  climax  some 
character.  But  to  say  that  it  was  a  fatal  attempt 
is  to  put  it  mildly.  She  absolutely  killed  a  certain 
quality  in  her  voice  there  and  then  and  she  never 
recovered  it.  Even  that  night  she  had  to  cut  out 
the  second  great  aria.  Her  beautiful  high  notes 
were  gone  forever."  As  I  have  said,  the  date  of 
this  incident,  which,  so  far  as  I  know,  is  not  re- 
corded elsewhere,  is  not  mentioned,  but  Christine 
Nilsson  sang  in  New  York  in  the  early  Eighties 
and  continued  to  sing  until  1891,  the  year  of  her 
final  appearance  in  London. 

Adelina  Patti,  born  the  same  year  as  Nilsson 
but  six  months  before  (February  10,  1843  ;  accord- 
ing to  some  records,  which  by  no  means  go  undis- 
puted, a  quartet  of  famous  singers  came  into  the 
world  this  year.  The  other  two  were  lima  de 
Murska  and  Pauline  Lucca)  made  many  farewell 
tours  of  this  country  .  .  .  one  too  many  in 
190&-4,  when  she  displayed  the  beaux  restes  of  her 
voice.  She  is  living  at  present  in  retirement  at 
Craig-y-Nos  in  Wales.  Her  greatest  rival, 
Etelka  Gerster,  too,  is  alive,  I  believe. 

Lilli  Lehmann,  one  of  the  oldest  of  the  living 
[269] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

great  singers,  was  born  May  13,  1848.  She  was 
a  member  of  the  famous  casts  which  introduced 
many  of  the  Wagner  works  to  New  York.  Her 
last  appearances  in  opera  here  were  made,  I  think, 
in  the  late  Nineties,  but  she  has  sung  here  since  in 
concert  and  in  Germany  she  has  frequently  assisted 
at  the  performances  of  the  Mozart  festivals  at 
Salzburg  and  has  even  sung  in  Norma  and  Gotter- 
dammerung  within  recent  years !  Her  head  is  now 
crowned  with  white  hair  and  her  noble  appearance 
and  magnificent  style  in  singing  have  doubtless 
stood  her  in  good  stead  at  these  belated  per- 
formances, which  probably  were  disappointing, 
judged  as  vocal  exhibitions. 

Lillian  Nordica  had  a  long  career.  She  was 
born  May  12,  1859,  and  made  her  operatic  debut 
in  Brescia  in  La  Traviata  in  1879.  She  continued 
to  sing  up  to  the  time  of  her  death  in  Batavia, 
Java,  May  10,  1914«.  Indeed  she  was  then  un- 
dertaking a  concert  tour  of  the  world  at  the  age  of 
55 !  But  the  artist,  who  in  the  Nineties  had  held 
the  Metropolitan  Opera  House  stage  with  honour 
in  the  great  dramatic  roles,  had  very  little  to  offer 
in  her  last  years.  Never  a  great  musician,  defects 
in  style  began  to  make  themselves  evident  as  her 
vocal  powers  decreased.  Her  season  at  the  Man- 
hattan Opera  House  in  1907-8  was  quickly  and 

[270] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

unpleasantly  terminated.  A  subsequent  single  ap- 
pearance as  Isolde  at  the  Metropolitan  in  the 
winter  of  1909^10  was  even  less  successful.  The 
voice  had  lost  its  resonance,  the  singer  her  appeal. 
Her  magnificent  courage  and  indomitable  ambition 
urged  her  on  to  the  end. 

Two  singers  whose  voices  have  been  mirac- 
ulously preserved,  who  have  indeed  suffered  little 
from  the  ravages  of  time,  are  Marcella  Sembrich 
and  Nellie  Melba.  Both  of  these  singers,  how- 
ever, have  consistently  refrained  from  misusing 
their  voices  (if  one  may  except  the  one  occasion  on 
which  Mme.  Melba  attempted  to  sing  Briinnhilde 
in  Siegfried  with  disastrous  results).  Mme. 
Melba  (according  to  Grove's  Dictionary,  which, 
like  all  other  books  devoted  to  the  subject  of 
music,  is  frequently  inaccurate)  was  born  in  Aus- 
tralia, May  19,  1859.  Therefore  she  was  28 
years  old  when  she  made  her  debut  in  Brussels  as 
Gilda  on  October  12,  1887.  She  has  used  her 
voice  carefully  and  well  and  still  sings  in  concert 
and  opera  at  the  age  of  59.  With  the  advance  of 
age,  indeed,  her  voice  began  to  take  on  colour. 
When  she  sang  here  in  opera  at  the  Manhattan 
Opera  House  in  1906-7  she  was  in  her  best  vocal 
estate.  Her  voice,  originally  rather  pale,  had  be- 
come mellow  and  rich,  although  it  is  possible  it  had 
[271] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

lost  some  of  its  old  remarkable  agility.  When 
last  I  listened  to  her  in  concert,  a  few  years  ago  at 
the  Hippodrome,  it  seemed  to  me  that  I  had  never 
before  heard  so  beautiful  a  voice,  and  yet  Mme. 
Melba  sang  in  the  first  performance  of  opera  I 
ever  attended  (Chicago  Auditorium;  Faust,  Feb- 
ruary 22,  1899). 

According  to  H.  T.  Finck,  Caruso  once  said, 
"  When  you  hear  that  an  artist  is  going  to  re- 
tire, don't  you  believe  it,  for  as  long  as  he  keeps 
his  voice  he  will  sing.  You  may  depend  upon 
that."  Sometimes,  indeed,  longer.  Mme.  Melba 
made  a  belated  and  unfortunate  attempt  to  sing 
Marguerite  in  Faust  with  the  Chicago  Opera  Com- 
pany, Monday  evening,  February  4,  1918,  at  the 
Lexington  Theatre,  New  York.  She  sang  with 
some  art  and  style;  her  tone  was  still  pure  and 
her  wonderful  enunciation  still  remained  a  feature 
of  her  performance  but  scarcely  a  shadow  of  the 
beautiful  voice  I  can  remember  so  well  was  left. 
As  if  to  atone  for  vocal  deficiencies  the  singer 
made  histrionic  efforts  such  as  she  had  never 
deemed  necessary  during  the  height  of  her  career. 
Her  meeting  with  Faust  in  the  Kermesse  scene  was 
accomplished  with  modesty  that  almost  became 
fright.  She  nearly  danced  the  jewel  song  and  em- 
braced the  tenor  with  passion  in  the  love  duet.  In 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

the  church  scene,  overcome  with  terror  at  the  sight 
of  Mephistopheles,  she  flung  her  prayer  book 
across  the  stage.  .  .  .  Her  appearance  was  almost 
shocking  and  the  first  lines  of  the  part  of  Mar- 
guerite, "  Non  monsieur,  je  ne  suis  demoiselle,  ni 
bette  "  had  a  merciless  application.  However,  the 
audience  received  her  with  kindness,  more  with  a 
certain  sort  of  enthusiasm.  She  reappeared  again 
in  the  same  opera  on  Thursday  evening,  February 
14,  1918,  but  on  this  occasion  I  did  not  hear  her. 
Marcella  Sembrich  was  born  February  15,  1858. 
She  made  her  debut  in  Athens  in  I  Puritawi, 
June  3,  1877,  and  she  made  her  New  York 
debut  in  Lucia  October  24,  1883,  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  first  season  of  the  Metropolitan 
Opera  House.  After  a  long  absence  she  re- 
turned to  New  York  in  1898  as  Rosina  in  II 
Barbiere.  After  that  year  she  sang  pretty 
steadily  at  the  Metropolitan  until  February  6, 
1909,  when,  at  the  age  of  51  (or  lacking  nine  days 
of  it),  she  bid  farewell  to  the  New  York  opera 
stage  in  acts  from  several  of  her  favourite  operas. 
She  subsequently  sang  in  a  few  performances  of 
opera  in  Europe  and  was  heard  in  song  recital  in 
America.  When  she  left  the  opera  house  she  had 
no  rival  in  vocal  artistry;  and  she  had  so  satis- 
factorily solved  the  problems  of  style  in  singing 
[273] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

certain  kinds  of  songs  that  she  also  surveyed  the 
field  of  song  recital  from  a  mountain  top.  .  .  . 
But  such  a  singer  as  Mme.  Sembrich,  who  made 
her  appeal  through  the  expression  of  the  milder 
emotions,  who  never,  indeed,  attempted  to  touch 
dramatic  depths,  even  style,  in  the  end,  will  not 
assist.  Magnificent  Lilli  Lehmann  might  make  a 
certain  effect  in  Gotterddmmerwng  so  long  as  she 
had  a  leg  to  stand  on  or  a  note  to  croak,  but  an 
adequate  delivery  of  Der  Nutsbaum  or  Wve  Melo- 
d\cn  demands  a  vocal  control  which  a  singer  past 
middle  age  is  not  always  sure  of  possessing.  .  .  . 
After  a  long  retirement,  Mme.  Sembrich  gave  a 
concert  at  Carnegie  Hall,  November  21,  1915. 
The  house  was  crowded  and  the  applause  at  the 
beginning  must  almost  have  unnerved  the  singer, 
who  walked  slowly  towards  the  front  of  the  plat- 
form as  the  storm  burst  and  then  bowed  her  head 
again  and  again.  Her  program  on  this  occasion 
was  not  one  of  her  best.  She  hud  not  chosen  fa- 
miliar songs  in  which  ta  return;  to  her  public. 
This  may  in  a  measure  fcccouritrfor  her  lack  of  suc- 
cess in  always  calling  forth  steady  tones.  How- 
ever, on  the  whole,  her  voice  sounded  amazingly 
fresh.  Her  high  notes  especially  rang  true  and 
resonant  as  ever.  Her  middle  voice  showed  wear. 
Her  style  remained  impeccable,  unrivalled.  .  .  . 
[274] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

She  announced,  following  this  concert,  a  series  of 
four  recitals  in  a  small  hall  and  actually  appeared 
at  one  of  them.  This  time  I  did  not  hear  her,  but 
I  am  told  that  her  voice  refused  to  respond  to  her 
wishes.  Nor  was  the  hall  filled.  The  remaining 
concerts  were  abandoned.  "  Mme.  Sembrich  has 
never  been  a  failure  and  she  is  too  old  to  begin 
now ! "  she  is  reported  to  have  said  to  a  friend. 

Emma  Calve's  date  of  birth  is  recorded  as  1864 
in  some  of  the  musical  dictionaries.  This  would 
make  her  53  years  old.  Her  singing  of  the  Mar- 
seillaise a  year  ago  at  the  Allies  Bazaar  at  the 
Grand  Central  Palace  proved  to  me  that  her  re- 
tirement from  the  Opera  was  premature.  Her 
performances  at  the  Manhattan  Opera  House  in 
1906-7  were  memorable,  vocally  superb.  Her 
Carmen  was  out  of  drawing  dramatically,  but  her 
Anita  and  her  Santuzza  remained  triumphs  of 
stage  craft. 

Emma  Eames,  born  August  13,  1867,  is  three 
years  younger  than  Mme.  Calve.  She  made  her 
debut  as  Juliette,  March  13,  1889.  She  retired 
from  the  opera  stage  in  1907-8,  although  she  has 
sung  since  then  a  few  times  in  concert.  Her  last 
appearances  at  the  Opera  were  made  in  dramatic 
roles,  Donna  Anna,  Leonora  (in  Trovatore),  and 
[275] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

Tosca,  in  contradistinction  to  the  lyric  parts  in 
which  she  gained  her  early  fame.  That  she  was 
entirely  successful  in  compassing  the  breach  can- 
not be  said  in  all  justice.  Yet  there  was  a  certain 
distinction  in  her  manner,  a  certain  acid  quality  in 
her  voice,  that  gave  force  to  these  character- 
izations. Certainly,  however,  no  one  would  ever 
have  compared  her  Donna  Anna  favourably  with 
her  Countess  in  Figaro.  Her  performance  of  Or 
sai  chi  Vonore  was  deficient  in  breadth  of  style  and 
her  lack  of  breath  control  at  this  period  gave  un- 
certainty to  her  execution. 

Life  teaches  us,  through  experience,  that  no  rule 
is  infallible,  but  insofar  as  I  am  able  to  give  a 
meaning  to  these  rambling  biographical  notes,  col- 
lected, I  may  as  well  admit,  more  to  interest  my 
reader  than  to  prove  anything,  it  is  the  meaning, 
sounded  with  a  high  note  of  truth,  by  Arthur  Sy- 
mons,  in  the  paragraph  quoted  at  the  beginning 
of  this  essay.  Style  is  a  rare  quality  in  a  singer. 
With  it  in  his  possession  an  artist  may  dare  much 
for  a  long  time.  Without  it  he  exists  as  long  as 
those  qualities  which  are  perfectly  natural  to  him 
exist.  A  voice  fades,  but  a  manner  of  applying 
that  voice  (even  when  there  is  practically  no  voice 
to  apply)  to  an  artistic  problem  has  an  indefinite 
term  of  life. 

[276] 


De    Senectute    Cantorum 

Yvette  Guilbert  once  told  me  that  crossing  the 
Atlantic  with  Duse  on  one  occasion  she  had  asked 
the  Italian  actress  if  she  were  going  to  include  La 
Dame  aux  Camelias  in  her  American  repertory. 
"  I  am  too  old  to  play  Marguerite  .  .  ."  was  the 
sad  response.  "  She  was  right,"  said  Guilbert,  in 
relating  the  incident,  "  she  was  too  old ;  she  was 
born  too  old  ...  in  spirit.  Now  when  I  am 
sixty-three  I  shall  begin  to  impersonate  children. 
I  grow  younger  every  year  1 " 

September  12,  1917. 


[277] 


Impressions  in  the  Theatre 


I 

The  Land  of  Joy 

"  Dancmg  is  something  more  than  an  amuse- 
ment in  Spain.  It  is  part  of  that  solemn  ritual 
which  enters  into  the  whole  life  of  the  people.  It 
expresses  their  very  spirit." 

Havelock  Ellis. 


AN  idle  observer  of  theatrical  conditions 
might  derive  a  certain  ironic  pleasure  from 
remarking  the  contradiction  implied  in  the 
professed  admiration  of  the  constables  of  the 
playhouse  for  the  unconventional  and  their  almost 
passionate  adoration  for  the  conventional.  We 
constantly  hear  it  said  that  the  public  cries  for 
novelty,  and  just  as  constantly  we  see  the  same 
kind  of  acting,  the  same  gestures,  the  same  Julian 
Mitchellisms  and  George  Marionisms  and  Ned 
Wayburnisms  repeated  in  and  out  of  season,  sum- 
mer and  winter.  Indeed,  certain  conventions 
(which  bore  us  even  now)  are  so  deeply  rooted  in 
the  soil  of  our  theatre  that  I  see  no  hope  of  their 
being  eradicated  before  the  year  1999,  at  which 
date  other  conventions  will  have  supplanted  them 
and  will  likewise  have  become  tiresome. 
[381] 


The    Land    of    Joy 

In  this  respect  our  theatre  does  not  differ  ma- 
terially from  the  theatres  of  other  countries  ex- 
cept in  one  particular.  In  Europe  the  juxtapo- 
sition of  nations  makes  an  interchange  of  conven- 
tions possible,  which  brings  about  slow  change  or 
rapid  revolution.  Paris,  for  example,  has  received 
visits  from  the  Russian  Ballet  which  almost  as- 
sumed the  proportions  of  Tartar  invasions. 
London,  too,  has  been  invaded  by  the  Russians 
and  by  the  Irish.  The  Irish  playwrights,  indeed, 
are  continually  pounding  away  at  British  middle- 
class  complacency.  Germany,  in  turn,  has  been 
invaded  by  England  (we  regret  that  this  sentence 
has  only  an  artistic  and  figurative  significance), 
and  we  find  Max  Reinhardt  well  on  his  way  toward 
giving  a  complete  cycle  of  the  plays  of  Shakes- 
peare; a  few  years  ago  we  might  have  observed 
Deutschland  groveling  hysterically  before  Oscar 
Wilde's  Salome,  a  play  which,  at  least  without  its 
musical  dress,  has  not,  I  believe,  even  yet  been  per- 
formed publicly  in  London.  In  Italy,  of  course, 
there  are  no  artistic  invasions  (nobody  cares  to 
pay  for  them)  and  even  the  conventions  of  the 
Italian  theatre  themselves,  such  as  the  Commedia 
del9 Art et  are  quite  dead;  so  the  country  remains 
as  dormant,  artistically  speaking,  as  a  rag  rug, 
until  an  enthusiast  like  Marinetti  arises  to  take  it 


The    Land    of    J  oy 

between  his  teeth  and  shake  it  back  into  rags 
again. 

Very  often  whisperings  of  art  life  in  the  foreign 
theatre  (such  as  accounts  of  Stanislavski's  ac- 
complishments in  Moscow)  cross  the  Atlantic. 
Very  often  the  husks  of  the  realities  (as  was  the 
case  with  the  Russian  Ballet)  are  imported.  But 
whispers  and  husks  have  about  as  much  influence 
as  the  "  New  York  Times  "  in  a  mayoralty  cam- 
paign, and  as  a  result  we  find  the  American  theatre 
as  little  aware  of  world  activities  in  the  drama  as 
a  deaf  mute  living  on  a  pole  in  the  desert  of 
Sahara  would  be.  Indeed  any  intrepid  foreign 
investigator  who  wishes  to  study  the  American 
drama,  American  acting,  and  American  stage  dec- 
oration will  find  them  in  almost  as  virgin  a  condi- 
tion as  they  were  in  the  time  of  Lincoln. 

A  few  rude  assaults  have  been  made  on  this 
smug  eupepsy.  I  might  mention  the  coming  of 
Paul  Orleneff,  who  left  Alia  Nazimova  with  us  to 
be  eventually  swallowed  up  in  the  conventional 
American  theatre.  Four  or  five  years  ago  a  com- 
pany of  Negro  players  at  the  Lafayette  Theatre 
gave  a  performance  of  a  musical  revue  that 
boomed  like  the  big  bell  in  the  Kremlin  at  Moscow. 
Nobody  could  be  deaf  to  the  sounds.  Florenz 
Ziegfeld  took  over  as  many  of  the  tunes  and  ges- 
[283] 


The    Land    of    Joy 

tures  as  he  could  buy  for  his  Follies  of  that 
season,  but  he  neglected  to  import  the  one  essen- 
tial quality  of  the  entertainment,  its  style,  for 
the  exploitation  of  which  Negro  players  were  in- 
dispensable. For  the  past  two  months  Mimi 
Aguglia,  one  of  the  greatest  actresses  of  the  world, 
has  been  performing  in  a  succession  of  classic  and 
modern  plays  (a  repertory  comprising  dramas  by 
Shakespeare,  d'Annunzio,  and  Giacosa)  at  the 
Garibaldi  Theatre,  on  East  Fourth  Street,  before 
very  large  and  very  enthusiastic  audiences,  but 
uptown  culture  and  managerial  acumen  will  not 
awaken  to  the  importance  of  this  gesture  until  they 
read  about  it  in  some  book  published  in  1950.  .  .  . 
All  of  which  is  merely  by  way  of  prelude  to  what 
I  feel  must  be  something  in  the  nature  of  lyric  out- 
burst and  verbal  explosion.  A  few  nights  ago  a 
Spanish  company,  unheralded,  unsung,  indeed  al- 
most unwelcomed  by  such  reviewers  as  had  to 
trudge  to  the  out-of-the-way  Park  Theatre,  came 
to  New  York,  in  a  musical  revue  entitled  The 
Land  of  Joy.  The  score  was  written  by  Joaqum 
Valverde,  fits,  whose  music  is  not  unknown  to  us, 
and  the  company  included  La  Argentina,  a  Spanish 
dancer  who  had  given  matinees  here  in  a  past  sea- 
son without  arousing  more  than  mild  enthusiasm. 
The  theatrical  impressarii,  the  song  publishers, 
[284] 


The    Land    of    Joy 

and  the  Broadway  rabble  stayed  away  on  the  first 
night.  It  was  all  very  well,  they  might  have  rea- 
soned, to  read  about  the  goings  on  in  Spain,  but 
they  would  never  do  in  America.  Spanish  dancers 
had  been  imported  in  the  past  without  awakening 
undue  excitement.  Did  not  the  great  Carmencita 
herself  visit  America  twenty  or  more  years  ago? 
These  impressarii  had  ignored  the  existence  of  a 
great  psychological  (or  more  properly  physiolog- 
ical) truth:  you  cannot  mix  Burgundy  and  Beer! 
One  Spanish  dancer  surrounded  by  Americans  is 
just  as  much  lost  as  the  great  Nijinsky  himself 
was  in  an  English  music  hall,  where  he  made  a 
complete  and  dismal  failure.  And  so  they  would 
have  been  very  much  astonished  (had  they  been 
present)  on  the  opening  night  to  have  witnessed 
all  the  scenes  of  uncontrollable  enthusiasm  —  just 
as  they  are  described  by  Havelock  Ellis,  Richard 
Ford,  and  Chabrier  —  repeated.  The  audience, 
indeed,  became  hysterical,  and  broke  into  wild 
cries  of  Ole!  Ole!  Hats  were  thrown  on  the  stage. 
The  audience  became  as  abandoned  as  the  players, 
became  a  part  of  the  action. 

You  will  find  all  this  described  in  "  The  Soul  of 

Spain,"  in  "  Gatherings  from  Spain,"  in  Chabrier's 

letters,  and  it  had  all  been  transplanted  to  New 

York  almost  without  a  whisper  of  preparation, 

[  285  ] 


The    Land    of    Joy 

which  is  fortunate,  for  if  it  had  been  expected, 
doubtless  we  would  have  found  the  way  to  spoil  it. 
Fancy  the  average  New  York  first-night  audience, 
stiff  and  unbending,  sceptical  and  sardonic,  wel- 
coming this  exhibition !  Havelock  Ellis  gives  an 
ingenious  explanation  for  the  fact  that  Spanish 
dancing  has  seldom  if  ever  successfully  crossed  the 
border  of  the  Iberian  peninsula :  "  The  finest 
Spanish  dancing  is  at  once  killed  or  degraded  by 
the  presence  of  an  indifferent  or  unsympathetic 
public,  and  that  is  probably  why  it  cannot  be 
transplanted,  but  remains  local."  Fortunately 
the  Spaniards  in  the  first-night  audience  gave  the 
cue,  unlocked  the  lips  and  loosened  the  hands  of 
us  cold  Americans.  For  my  part,  I  was  soon  yell- 
ing Ole!  louder  than  anybody  else. 

The  dancer,  Doloretes,  is  indeed  extraordinary. 
The  gipsy  fascination,  the  abandoned,  perverse 
bewitchery  of  this  female  devil  of  the  dance  is  not 
to  be  described  by  mouth,  typewriter,  or  quilled 
pen.  Heine  would  have  put  her  at  the  head  of  his 
dancing  temptresses  in  his  ballet  of  Mephistophela 
(found  by  Lumley  too  indecent  for  representation 
at  Her  Majesty's  Theatre,  for  which  it  was  writ- 
ten ;  in  spite  of  which  the  scenario  was  published 
in  the  respectable  "Revue  de  Deux  Mondes  "). 
[286] 


The    Land    of    Joy 

In  this  ballet  a  series  of  dancing  celebrities  are  ex- 
hibited by  the  female  Mephistopheles  for  the  enter- 
tainment of  her  victim.  After  Salome  had  twisted 
her  flanks  and  exploited  the  prowess  of  her  abdom- 
inal muscles  to  perfunctory  applause,  Doloretes 
would  have  heated  the  blood,  not  only  of  Faust, 
but  of  the  ladies  and  gentlemen  in  the  orchestra 
stalls,  with  the  clicking  of  her  heels,  the  clacking  of 
her  castanets,  now  held  high  over  head,  now  held 
low  behind  her  back,  the  flashing  of  her  ivory  teeth, 
the  shrill  screaming,  electric  magenta  of  her  smile, 
the  wile  of  her  wriggle,  the  passion  of  her  per- 
formance. And  close  beside  her  the  sinuous  Maz- 
antinita  would  flaunt  a  garish  tambourine  and 
wave  a  shrieking  fan.  All  inanimate  objects, 
shawls,  mantillas,  combs,  and  cymbals,  become  in- 
flamed with  life,  once  they  are  pressed  into  the  serv- 
ice of  these  senoritas,  languorous  and  forbidding, 
indifferent  and  sensuous.  Against  these  rude  gip- 
sies the  refined  grace  and  Goyaesque  elegance  of 
La  Argentina  stand  forth  in  high  relief,  La  Argen- 
tina, in  whose  hands  the  castanets  become  as  potent 
an  instrument  for  our  pleasure  as  the  violin  does  in 
the  fingers  of  Jascha  Heifetz.  Bilbao,  too,  with 
his  thundering  heels  and  his  tauromachian  gestures, 
bewilders  our  highly  magnetized  senses.  When,  in 
[287] 


The    Land    of    Joy 

the  dance,  he  pursues,  without  catching,  the  elusive 
Doloretes,  it  would  seem  that  the  limit  of  dynamic 
effects  in  the  theatre  had  been  reached. 

Here  are  singers!  The  limpid  and  lovely 
soprano  of  the  comparatively  placid  Maria  Marco, 
who  introduces  figurations  into  the  brilliant  music 
she  sings  at  every  turn.  One  indecent  (there  is 
no  other  word  for  it)  chromatic  oriental  phrase  is 
so  strange  that  none  of  us  can  ever  recall  it  or 
forget  it!  And  the  frantically  nervous  Luisita 
Puchol,  whose  eyelids  spring  open  like  the  cover 
of  a  Jack-in-the-box,  and  whose  hands  flutter 
like  saucy  butterflies,  sings  suggestive  popular 
ditties  just  a  shade  better  than  any  one  else  I 
know  of. 

But  The  Land  of  Joy  does  not  rely  on  one  or 
two  principals  for  its  effect.  The  organization  as 
a  whole  is  as  full  of  fire  and  purpose  as  the  orig- 
inal Russian  Ballet ;  the  costumes  themselves,  in 
their  blazing,  heated  colours,  constitute  the  ingre- 
dients of  an  orgy ;  the  music,  now  sentimental  (the 
adaptability  of  Valverde,  who  has  lived  in  Paris,  is 
little  short  of  amazing ;  there  is  a  vocal  waltz  in  the 
style  of  Arditi  that  Mme.  Patti  might  have  intro- 
duced into  the  lesson  scene  of  II  Barbiere;  there  is 
another  song  in  the  style  of  George  M.  Cohan  — 
these  by  way  of  contrast  to  the  Iberian  music), 
[288] 


The    Land    of    Joy 

now  pulsing  with  rhythmic  life,  is  the  best  Spanish 
music  we  have  yet  heard  in  this  country.  The 
whole  entertainment,  music,  colours,  costumes, 
songs,  dances,  and  all,  is  as  nicely  arranged  in  its 
crescendos  and  decrescendos,  its  prestos  and 
adagios  as  a  Mozart  finale.  The  close  of  the  first 
act,  in  which  the  ladies  sweep  the  stage  with  long 
ruffled  trains,  suggestive  of  all  the  Manet  pictures 
you  have  ever  seen,  would  seem  to  be  unapproach- 
able, but  the  most  striking  costumes  and  the  wild- 
est dancing  are  reserved  for  the  very  last  scene 
of  all.  There  these  bewildering  senoritas  come 
forth  in  the  splendourous  envelope  of  embroid- 
ered Manila  shawls,  and  such  shawls  !  Prehistoric 
African  roses  of  unbelievable  measure  decorate  a 
texture  of  turquoise,  from  which  depends  nearly  a 
yard  of  silken  fringe.  In  others  mingle  royal  pur- 
ple and  buff,  orange  and  white,  black  and  the 
kaleidoscope!  The  revue,  a  sublimated  form  of 
zarzuela,  is  calculated,  indeed,  to  hold  you  in  a 
dangerous  state  of  nervous  excitement  during  the 
entire  evening,  to  keep  you  awake  for  the  rest 
of  the  night,  and  to  entice  you  to  the  theatre  the 
next  night  and  the  next.  It  is  as  intoxicating  as 
vodka,  as  insidious  as  cocaine,  and  it  is  likely  to 
become  a  habit,  like  these  stimulants.  I  have 
found,  indeed,  that  it  appeals  to  all  classes  of  taste, 
[289] 


The    Land    of    Joy 

from  that  of  a  telephone  operator,  whose  usual 
artistic  debauch  is  the  latest  antipyretic  novel  of 
Robert  W.  Chambers,  to  that  of  the  frequenter  of 
the  concert  halls. 

I  cannot  resist  further  cataloguing;  details 
shake  their  fists  at  my  memory;  for  instance,  the 
intricate  rhythms  of  Valverde's  elaborately  synco- 
pated music  (not  at  all  like  ragtime  syncopation), 
the  thrilling  orchestration  (I  remember  one  dance 
which  is  accompanied  by  drum  taps  and  oboe, 
nothing  else!),  the  utter  absence  of  tangos  (which 
are  Argentine),  and  habaneras  (which  are  Cuban), 
most  of  the  music  being  written  in  two-four  and 
three-four  time,  and  the  interesting  use  of  folk- 
tunes;  the  casual  and  very  suggestive  indifference 
of  the  dancers,  while  they  are  not  dancing,  seem- 
ingly models  for  a  dozen  Zuloaga  paintings,  the 
apparently  inexhaustible  skill  and  variety  of  these 
dancers  in  action,  winding  ornaments  around  the 
melodies  with  their  feet  and  bodies  and  arms  and 
heads  and  castanets  as  coloratura  sopranos  do  with 
their  voices.  Sometimes  castanets  are  not  used; 
cymbals  supplant  them,  or  tambourines,  or  even 
fingers.  Once,  by  some  esoteric  witchcraft,  the 
dancers  seemed  to  tap  upon  their  arms.  The 
effect  was  so  stupendous  and  terrifying  that  I 
could  not  project  myself  into  that  aloof  state  of 
[290] 


The    Land    of    J  oy 

mind  necessary  for  a  calm  dissection  of  its  tech- 
nique. 

What  we  have  been  thinking  of  all  these  years 
in  accepting  the  imitation  and  ignoring  the  ac- 
tuality I  don't  know ;  it  has  all  been  down  in  black 
and  white.  What  Richard  Ford  saw  and  wrote 
down  in  1846  I  am  seeing  and  writing  down  in 
1917.  How  these  devilish  Spaniards  have  been 
able  to  keep  it  up  all  this  time  I  can't  imagine. 
Here  we  have  our  paradox.  Spain  has  changed 
so  little  that  Ford's  book  is  still  the  best  to  be  pro- 
cured on  the  subject  (you  may  spend  many  a  de- 
lightful half-hour  with  the  charming  irony  of  its 
pages  for  company).  Spanish  dancing  is  appar- 
ently what  it  was  a  hundred  years  ago;  no  wind 
from  the  north  has  disturbed  it.  Stranger  still, 
it  depends  for  its  effect  on  the  acquirement  of  a 
brilliant  technique.  Merely  to  play  the  castanets 
requires  a  severe  tutelage.  And  yet  it  is  all  as 
spontaneous,  as  fresh,  as  unstudied,  as  vehement 
in  its  appeal,  even  to  Spaniards,  as  it  was  in  the 
beginning.  Let  us  hope  that  Spain  will  have  no 
artistic  reawakening. 

Aristotle  and  Havelock  Ellis  and  Louis  Sherwin 

have  taught  us  that  the  theatre  should  be  an  outlet 

for    suppressed    desires.      So,    indeed,    the    ideal 

theatre   should.     As   a  matter   of   fact?   in   most 

[291] 


The    Land    of    Joy 

playhouses  (I  will  generously  refrain  from  nam- 
ing the  one  I  visited  yesterday)  I  am  continually 
suppressing  a  desire  to  strangle  somebody  or 
other,  but  after  a  visit  to  the  Spaniards  I  walk  out 
into  Columbus  Circle  completely  purged  of  pity 
and  fear,  love,  hate,  and  all  the  rest.  It  is  an 
experience. 

November  3, 1917. 


II 

A  Note  on  Mimi  Aguglia 

"Art  has>  to  do  only  with  the  creation  of  beauty, 
whether  it  be  in  words,  or  sounds,  or  colour,  or  outline, 
or  rhythmical  movement;  and  the  man  who  writes 
music  is  no  more  truly  an  artist  than  the  man  who 
plays  that  music,  the  poet  who  composes  rhythms  in 
words  no  more  truly  an  artist  than  the  dancer  who 
composes  rhythms  with  the  body,  and  the  one  is  no 
more  to  be  preferred  to  the  other,  than  the  painter  is 
to  be  preferred  to  the  sculptor,  or  the  musician  to  the 
poet,  in  those  forms  of  art  which  we  have  agreed  to 
recognize  as  of  equal  value/' 

Arthur  Symons. 


THE   only  George  Jean,   "  witty,  wise,   and 
cruel,"  and  the  "  amaranthine  "  Louis  Sher- 
win,  who  understands  better  than  anybody 
else  how  to  plunge  the  rapier  into  the  vulnerable 
spot  and  twist  it  in  the  wound,  making  the  victim 
writhe,  have  been  having  some  fun  with  the  art  of 
acting  lately,   or   to   be   exact,   with   the   art   of 
actors.     Now  actor-baiting  is  no  new  game;  as  a 
winter  sport  it  is  as  popular  as  making  jokes  about 
mothers-in-law,  decrying  the  art  of  Bouguereau  or 
Howard    Chandler    Christy,    or    discussing    the 
[  293  ] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

methods  of  Mr.  Belasco.  Ever  so  long  ago  (and 
George  Henry  Lewes  preceded  him)  George  Moore 
wrote  an  article  called  "  Mummer  Worship,"  hold- 
ing the  players  up  to  ridicule,  but  George  really 
adores  the  theatre  and  even  acting,  goes  to  the 
playhouse  constantly,  and  writes  a  bad  play  him- 
self every  few  years.  None  of  these  has  achieved 
success  on  the  stage.  The  list  includes  Martin 
Luther,  written  with  a  collaborator,  The  Strike  at 
Arlmgford,  The  Bending  of  the  Bough  (Moore's 
version  of  a  play  by  Edwin  Martyn),  a  dramati- 
zation of  "  Esther  Waters,"  Elizabeth  Cooper,  and 
the  fragment,  The  Apostle,  on  which  "  The  Brook 
Kerith,"  was  based.  Now  he  is  at  work  turning 
the  novel  back  into  another  play.  .  .  .  When  the 
Sunday  editor  of  a  newspaper  is  at  his  wit's  end 
he  invariably  sends  a  competent  reporter  to  col- 
lect data  for  a  symposium  on  one  of  two  topics,  Is 
the  author  or  the  player  more  important?  or  Does 
the  stage  director  make  the  actor?  The  amount 
of  amusement  this  reporter  can  derive  in  gathering 
indignant  replies  from  mountebanks  and  scrib- 
blers is  only  limited  by  his  own  sense  of  humour. 
Even  the  late  Sir  Henry  Irving  felt  compelled  on 
more  than  one  occasion  to  defend  his  "  noble  call- 
ing." 

The  actor,  when  he  slaps  back,  usually  overlooks 
[  294  ] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

the  point  at  issue,  but  sometimes  he  has  some- 
thing to  say  over  which  we  may  well  ponder. 
Witness,  for  example,  the  following  passage, 
quoted  from  that  justly  celebrated  compendium 
of  personal  opinions  and  broad-shaft  wit  called 
"  Nat  Goodwin's  Book  " :  "  The  average  author 
and  manager  of  today  are  prone  to  advertise 
themselves  as  conspicuously  as  the  play  (as  if  the 
public  cared  a  snap  who  wrote  the  play  or  who 
'  presents  ').  I  doubt  if  five  per  cent  of  the  pub- 
lic know  who  wrote  '  The  Second  Mrs.  Tanqueray,' 
'  In  Mizzoura,'  or  '  Richelieu,'  but  they  know  their 
stage  favourites.  I  wonder  how  many  mantels  are 
adorned  with  pictures  of  the  successful  dramatist 
and  those  who  '  present '  and  how  many  there  are 
on  which  appear  Maude  Adams,  Dave  Warfield, 
Billie  Burke,  John  Drew,  Bernhardt,  Duse,  and 
hundreds  of  other  distinguished  players." 

It  is  principally  urged  against  the  claims  of 
acting  as  an  art  that  a  young  person  without  pre- 
vious experience  or  training  can  make  an  imme- 
diate (and  sometimes  lasting)  effect  upon  the 
stage,  whereas  in  the  preparation  for  any  other 
art  (even  the  interpretative  arts)  years  of  train- 
ing are  necessary.  This  premise  is  full  of  holes; 
nevertheless  George  Moore,  and  Messrs.  Nathan 
and  Sherwin  all  cling  to  it.  It  is  true  that  almost 
[295] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

any  young  girl,  moderately  gifted  with  charm  or 
comeliness,  may  make  an  instantaneous  impression 
on  our  stage,  especially  in  the  namby-pamby  roles 
which  our  playwrights  usually  give  her  to  play. 
But  she  is  soon  found  out.  She  may  still  attract 
audiences  (as  George  Barr  McCutcheon  and  Alma 
Tadema  still  attract  audiences)  but  the  discerning 
part  of  the  public  will  take  no  joy  in  seeing  her. 
Charles  Frohman  said  (and  he  ought  to  know) 
that  the  average  life  of  a  female  star  on  the  Amer- 
ican stage  was  ten  years;  in  other  words,  her 
career  continued  as  long  as  her  youth  and  physical 
charms  remained  potent. 

We  have  easily  accounted  for  the  unimportant 
actors,  the  rank  and  file,  but  what  about  those  who 
immediately  claim  positions  which  they  hold  in 
spite  of  their  lack  of  previous  training?  These 
are  rarer.  At  the  moment,  indeed,  I  cannot  think 
of  any.  For  while  genius  often  manifests  itself 
early  in  a  career,  the  great  actors,  as  a  rule,  have 
struggled  for  many  years  to  learn  the  rudiments 
of  their  art  before  they  have  given  indisputable 
proof  of  their  greatness,  or  before  they  have  been 
recognized.  "  Real  acting,"  according  to  Percy 
Fitzgerald,  "  is  a  science,  to  be  studied  and  mas- 
tered, as  other  sciences  are  studied  and  mastered, 
by  long  years  of  training."  They  may  not  have 
[296] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

had  the  strenuous  Conservatoire  and  Theatre 
Fran9ais  training  of  Sarah  Bernhardt.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  indeed,  the  actor  may  far  better 
learn  to  handle  his  tools  by  manipulating  them 
before  an  audience,  than  by  practicing  with  them 
for  too  long  a  time  in  the  closet.  The  technique 
of  violin  playing  can  best  be  acquired  before  the 
virtuoso  appears  in  public,  although  no  amount 
of  training  in  itself  will  make  a  great  violinist,  but 
the  basic  elements  of  acting,  grace,  diction,  etc., 
can  just  as  well  be  acquired  behind  the  footlights 
and  so  many  great  actors  have  acquired  them,  as 
many  of  the  greatest  have  ignored  them.  There 
can  be  no  hard  and  fast  rules  laid  down  for  this 
sort  of  thing.  Can  we  thank  nine  months  with 
Mme.  Marchesi  for  the  instantaneous  success  and 
subsequent  brilliant  career  of  Mme.  Melba? 
Against  this  training  offset  the  years  and  years  of 
road  playing  and  the  more  years  of  study  at  home 
in  retirement  to  account  for  the  career  of  Mrs. 
Fiske.  The  Australian  soprano  was  born  with  a 
naturally-placed  and  flexible  voice.  Her  shake 
is  said  to  have  been  perfection  when  she  was  a 
child;  her  scale  was  even;  her  intonation  impec- 
cable. She  had  very  little  to  learn  except  the  roles 
in  the  operas  she  was  to  sing  and  her  future  was 
very  clearly  marked  from  the  night  she  made  her 
[297] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

debut  as  Gilda  in  Rigotetto.  Mme.  Patti  was 
equally  gifted.  Mme.  Pasta  and  Mme.  Fremstad, 
on  the  other  hand,  toiled  very  slowly  towards  fame. 
The  former  singer  was  an  absolute  failure  when 
she  first  appeared  in  London  and  it  took  several 
years  of  hard  work  to  make  her  the  greatest  lyric 
artist  of  her  day.  The  great  Jenny  Lind  retired 
from  the  stage  completely  defeated,  only  to  return 
as  the  most  popular  singer  of  her  time.  Mischa 
Elman  has  told  me  he  never  practices ;  Leo  Orn- 
stein,  on  the  other  hand,  spends  hours  every  day 
at  the  piano.  Mozart  sprang,  full-armed  with 
genius,  into  the  world.  He  began  composing  at 
the  age  of  four.  No  training  was  necessary  for 
him,  but  Beethoven  and  Wagner  developed  slowly. 
In  the  field  of  writers  there  are  even  more  happy 
examples.  Hundreds  of  boys  have  spent  years  in 
theme  and  literature  courses  in  college  preparing 
in  vain  for  a  future  which  was  never  to  be  theirs, 
while  other  youths  with  no  educations  have  taken 
to  writing  as  a  cat  takes  to  cat-nip.  Should  we 
assume  that  the  annual  output  of  Professor 
Baker's  class  at  Harvard  produces  better  play- 
wrights than  Moliere  or  Shakespeare,  neither  of 
whom  enjoyed  Professor  Baker's  lectures,  nor,  I 
think  I  am  safe  in  conjecturing,  anything  like 
them? 

[298] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

What,  after  all,  constitutes  training?  For  a 
creative  or  interpretative  genius  mere  existence 
seems  to  be  sufficient.  Joseph  Conrad,  Nicholas 
Rimsky-Korsakov,  and  Patrick  MacGill  all  were 
sailors  for  many  years  before  they  began  to  write. 
We  owe  "  Youth  "  and  the  first  section  of  Sche- 
herazade to  this  accident.  MacGill  also  had  the 
privilege  of  digging  potatoes ;  he  writes  about  it 
in  "The  Rat-pit."  Mrs.  Patrick  Campbell 
learned  enough  about  how  to  move  about  and  how 
to  speak  in  the  country  houses  she  frequented 
before  she  began  her  professional  career  to  enable 
her  immediately  to  take  a  position  of  importance 
on  the  stage.  It  does  not  seem  necessary,  indeed, 
that  the  training  for  any  career  should  be  pre- 
scribed or  systematic.  Some  men  get  their  train- 
ing one  way  and  some  another.  A  school  of  act- 
ing may  be  of  the  greatest  benefit  to  A,  while  R 
will  not  profit  by  it.  Some  actors  are  ruined  by 
stock  companies ;  others  are  improved  by  them. 
The  geniuses  in  this  interpretative  art  as  in  all 
the  other  interpretative  and  creative  arts,  seem  to 
rise  above  obstructions,  and  to  make  themselves 
felt,  whatever  difficulties  are  put  in  their  way. 

Some  great  actors,  like  some  great  musicians 
and  authors,  create  out  of  their  fulness.  They 
cannot  explain ;  they  do  not  need  to  study ;  they 
[299] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

create  by  instinct.  Others,  like  Beethoven  and 
Olive  Fremstad,  work  and  rework  their  material 
in  the  closet  until  it  approaches  perfection,  when 
they  expose  it.  To  say  that  there  are  bad  actors 
following  in  the  footsteps  of  both  these  types  of 
geniuses  is  to  be  axiomatic  and  trite.  It  would 
be  a  foregone  conclusion.  Just  as  there  are  mu- 
sicians who  write  as  easily  as  Mozart  but  who 
have  nothing  to  say,  so  there  are  other  musicians 
who  write  and  rewrite,  work  and  rework,  study 
and  restudy,  and  yet  what  they  finally  offer  the 
public  has  not  the  quality  or  the  force  or  the  in- 
spiration of  a  common  gutter-ballad. 

It  has  also  been  urged  in  print  that  as  natural- 
ness is  the  goal  of  the  actor  he  should  never  have 
to  strive  for  it.  The  names  of  Frank  Reicher  and 
John  Drew  are  often  mentioned  as  those  of  men 
who  "  play  themselves  "  on  the  stage.  A  most 
difficult  thing  to  do !  Also  an  unfortunate  choice 
of  names.  Each  of  these  artists  has  undergone  a 
long  and  arduous  apprenticeship  in  order  to 
achieve  the  natural  method  which  has  given  him 
eminence  in  his  career.  Indeed,  of  all  the  qualities 
of  the  actor  this  is  the  least  easy  to  acquire. 

Actors  are  often  condemned  because  they  are 
not  versatile.  Versatility  is  undoubtedly  an  ad- 
mirable quality  in  an  actor,  valuable,  especially  to 
[300] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

his  manager,  but  hardly  an  essential  one.  An  ar- 
tist is  not  required  to  do  more  than  one  thing  well. 
Vladimir  de  Pachmann  specializes  in  Chopin  play- 
ing, but  Arthur  Symons  once  wrote  that  "  he  is  the 
greatest  living  pianist,  because  he  can  play  cer- 
tain things  better  than  any  other  pianist  can  play 
anything."  Should  we  not  allot  similar  approval 
to  the  actor  or  actress  who  makes  a  fine  effect  in 
one  part  or  in  one  kind  of  part?  I  should  not  call 
Ellen  Terry  a  versatile  actress,  but  I  should  call 
her  a  great  artist.  Marie  Tempest  is  not  versa- 
tile, unless  she  should  be  so  designated  for  having 
made  equal  successes  on  the  lyric  and  dramatic 
stages,  but  she  is  one  of  the  most  satisfying  artists 
at  present  appearing  before  our  public.  Mal- 
larme  was  not  versatile ;  Cezanne  was  not  versatile ; 
nor  was  Thomas  Love  Peacock.  Mascagni,  as- 
suredly, is  not  versatile.  The  da  Vincis  and  Wag- 
ners are  rare  figures  in  the  history  of  creative  art 
just  as  the  Nijinskys  and  Rachels  are  rare  in  the 
history  of  interpretative  art. 

Someone  may  say  that  the  great  actor  dies  while 
the  play  goes  thundering  on  through  the  ages  on 
the  stage  and  in  everyman's  library.  This  very 
point,  indeed,  is  made  by  Mr.  Lewes.  But  this, 
alas,  is  the  reverse  of  the  truth.  We  have  compe- 
tent and  immensely  absorbing  records  of  the  lives 
[301] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

and  art  of  David  Garrick,  Mrs.  Siddons,  Ristori, 
Clairon,  Rachel,  Charlotte  Cushman,  Edwin  Booth, 
and  other  prominent  players,  while  most  of  the 
plays  in  which  they  appeared  are  not  only  no 
longer  actable,  but  also  no  longer  readable.  The 
brothers  de  Goncourt,  for  example,  wrote  an  ac- 
count of  Clairon  which  is  a  book  of  the  first  in- 
terest, while  I  defy  any  one  to  get  through  two 
pages  of  most  of  the  fustian  she  was  compelled  to 
act!  The  reason  for  this  is  very  easily  formu- 
lated. Great  acting  is  human  and  universal.  It 
is  eternal  in  its  appeal  and  its  memory  is  easily 
kept  alive  while  playwrighting  is  largely  a  matter 
of  fashion,  and  appeals  to  the  mob  of  men  and 
women  who  never  read  and  who  are  more  interested 
in  police  news  than  they  are  in  poetry.  George 
Broadhurst  or  Henry  Bernstein  or  Arthur  Wing 
Pinero,  or  others  like  them,  have  always  been  the 
popular  playwrights ;  a  few  names  like  Sophocles, 
Terence,  Moliere,  Shakespeare,  and  Ibsen  come 
rolling  down  to  us,  but  they  are  precious  and  few. 
A  great  actor,  indeed,  can  put  life  into  per- 
fectly wooden  material.  In  the  case  of  Sarah 
Bernhardt,  who  was  the  creator,  the  actress  or 
Sardou?  In  the  case  of  Henry  Irving,  who  was 
the  creator,  the  actor  or  the  authors  of  The  Bells 
and  Faust  (not,  in  this  instance,  Goethe)?  Is 
[302] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

Langdon  Mitchell's  version  of  "  Vanity  Fair  "  suf- 
ficiently a  work  of  art  to  exist  without  the  co- 
operation of  Mrs.  Fiske?  When  Duse  electrified 
her  audiences  in  such  plays  as  The  Second  Mrs. 
Tanqneray  and  Fedora,  were  the  dramatists  re- 
sponsible for  the  effect?  Arthur  Symons  says 
of  her  in  the  latter  play,  "  A  great  actress,  who  is 
also  a  great  intelligence,  is  seen  accepting  it,  for 
its  purpose,  with  contempt,  as  a  thing  to  exercise 
her  technical  skill  upon."  One  reads  of  Mrs.  Sid- 
done  that  she  could  move  a  roomful  of  people  to 
tears  merely  by  repeating  the  word  "  hippopot- 
amus "  with  varying  stress.  Should  we  thank  the 
behemoth  for  this  miracle? 

Any  one  who  understands  great  acting  knows 
that  it  is  illumination.  There  are  those  who  are 
born  to  throw  light  on  the  creations  of  the  poets, 
just  as  there  are  others  born  to  be  poets.  These 
interpreters  give  a  new  life  to  the  works  of  the 
masters,  ^Eschylus,  Congreve,  Tchekhov.  When, 
as  more  frequently  happens,  they  are  called  upon 
to  play  mediocre  parts  it  is  with  their  own  per- 
sonal force,  their  atmospheric  aura  that  they 
create  something  more  than  the  author  himself 
ever  intended  or  dreamed  of.  How  could  Joseph 
Jefferson  play  Rip  Van  Wmkle  for  thirty  years 
(or  longer)  with  scenery  in  tatters  and  a  company 
[308] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

of  mummers  which  Corse  Payton  would  have 
scorned?  Was  it  because  of  the  greatness  of  the 
play?  If  that  were  true,  why  is  not  some  one  else 
performing  this  drama  today  to  large  audiences? 
Has  any  one  read  the  Joseph  Jefferson  acting 
version  of  Rip  Van  Winkle?  Who  wrote  it? 
Don't  you  think  it  rather  extraordinary  that  a 
play  which  apparently  has  given  so  much  pleasure, 
and  in  which  Jefferson  was  hailed  as  a  great  actor 
by  every  contemporary  critic  of  note,  as  is  in  it- 
self so  little  known?  It  is  not  extraordinary. 
It  was  Jefferson's  performance  of  the  title  role 
which  gave  vitality  to  the  play. 

Of  course,  there  are  few  actors  who  have  this 
power,  few  great  actors.  What  else  could  you 
expect?  A  critic  might  prove  that  play  writing 
was  not  an  art  on  the  majority  of  the  evidence. 
Almost  all  the  music  composed  in  America  could 
be  piled  up  to  prove  that  music  was  not  an  art. 
Should  we  say  that  there  is  no  art  of  painting  be- 
cause the  Germans  have  no  great  painters? 

At  present,  however,  it  is  quite  possible  for  any 
one  in  New  York  with  car  or  taxi-cab  fare  to  see 
one  of  the  greatest  of  living  actresses.  She  is  not 
playing  on  Broadway.  This  actress  has  never  been 
to  dramatic  school ;  she  has  not  had  the  advantages 
[304*] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

of  Alia  Nazimova,  who  has  worked  with  at  least 
one  fine  stage  -director.  She  was  simply  born  a 
genius,  that  is  all ;  she  has  perfected  her  art  by 
appearing  in  a  great  variety  of  parts,  the  method 
of  Edwin  Booth.  Most  of  these  parts  happen  to 
be  in  masterpieces  of  the  drama.  She  is  not  un- 
accustomed to  playing  Zaza  one  evening  and 
d'Annunzio's  Francesco,  da  Rimini  the  next.  Her 
repertory  further  includes  La  Dame  aux  Camelias, 
Hamlet,  Romeo  and  Juliet,  La  Figlia  di  lorio, 
Giuseppe  Giacosa's  Come  le  Foglie,  Sicilian  folk- 
plays,  and  plays  by  Arturo  Giovannitti.  When  I 
first  saw  Mimi  Aguglia  she  was  little  more  than  a 
crude  force,  a  great  struggling  light,  that  some- 
times illuminated,  nay  often  blinded,  but  which 
shone  in  unequal  flashes.  Experience  has  made  of 
her  an  actress  who  is  almost  unfailing  in  her  effect. 
If  you  asked  her  about  the  technique  of  her  art 
she  would  probably  smile  (as  Mozart  and  Schubert 
might  have  done  before  her)  ;  if  you  asked  her 
about  her  method  she  would  not  understand  you 
.  .  .  but  she  understands  the  art  of  acting. 

Watch  her,  for  instance,  in  the  second  act  of 
Zaza,  in  the  scene  in  which  the  music  hall  singer 
discovers  that  her  lover  has  a  wife  and  child.  No 
heroics,  no  shrieks,  no  conventional  posturings  and 
shruggings  and  sobbing  .  .  .  something  far  worse 
[305] 


A    Note    on    Mimi    Aguglia 

she  exposes  to  us,  a  nameless  terror.  She  stands 
with  her  back  against  a  table,  nonchalant  and 
smilingly  defiant,  unwilling  to  return  to  the  music 
hall  with  her  former  partner,  but  pleasantly  joc- 
ular in  her  refusal.  Stung  into  anger,  he  hurls  his 
last  bomb.  Zaza  is  smoking.  As  she  listens  to 
the  cruel  words  the  corner  of  her  mouth  twitches, 
the  cigarette  almost  falls.  That  is  all.  There  is 
a  moment's  silence  unbroken  save  by  the  heart- 
beats of  her  spectators.  Even  the  babies  which 
mothers  bring  in  abundance  to  the  Italian  theatre 
are  quiet.  With  that  esoteric  magnetism  with 
which  great  artists  are  possessed  she  holds  the  au- 
dience captive  by  this  simple  gesture.  I  could 
continue  to  point  out  other  astounding  details 
in  this  impersonation,  but  not  one  of  them,  per- 
haps, would  illustrate  Aguglia's  art  as  does  this 
one.  If  no  training  is  necessary  to  produce  ef- 
fects of  this  kind,  I  would  pronounce  acting  the 
most  holy  of  the  arts,  for  then,  surely,  it  is  a 
direct  gift  from  God. 

September  5,  1917. 


[306] 


Ill 

The  New  Isadora 

"  We  shift  and  bedeck  and  bedrape  us, 
Thou  art  noble  and  nude  and  antique;  " 

Swinburne's  "  Dolores." 


I  HAVE  a  fine  memory  of  a  chance  description 
flung  off  by  some  one  at  a  dinner  in  Paris ;  a 
picture  of  the  youthful  Isadora  Duncan  in  her 
studio  in  New  York  developing  her  ideals  through 
sheer  will  and  preserving  the  contour  of  her  feet 
by  wearing  carpet  slippers.  The  latter  detail 
stuck  in  my  memory.  It  may  or  may  not  be  true, 
but  it  could  have  been,  should  have  been  true.  The 
incipient  dancer  keeping  her  feet  pure  for  her 
coming  marriage  with  her  art  is  a  subject  for 
philosophic  dissertation  or  for  poetry.  There  are 
many  poets  who  would  have  seized  on  this  idea  for 
an  ode  or  even  a  sonnet,  had  it  occurred  to  them. 
Oscar  Wilde  would  have  liked  this  excuse  for  a 
poem  .  .  .  even  Robert  Browning,  who  would 
have  woven  many  moral  strophes  from  this  text. 
...  It  would  have  furnished  Mr.  George  Moore 
with  material  for  another  story  for  the  volume 
called  "  Celibates."  Walter  Pater  might  have 
[307] 


The    New    Isadora 

dived  into  some  very  beautiful,  but  very  conscious, 
prose  with  this  theme  as  a  spring-board.  Huys- 
mans  would  have  found  this  suggestion  sufficient 
inspiration  for  a  romance  the  length  of  "  Clarissa 
Harlowe."  You  will  remember  that  the  author  of 
u  En  Route  "  meditated  writing  a  novel  about  a 
man  who  left  his  house  to  go  to  his  office.  Per- 
ceiving that  his  shoes  have  not  been  polished  he 
stops  at  a  boot-black's  and  during  the  operation 
he  reviews  his  affairs.  The  problem  was  to  make 
300  pages  of  this !  .  .  .  Lombroso  would  have 
added  the  detail  to  his  long  catalogue  in  "  The  Man 
of  Genius  "  as  another  proof  of  the  insanity  of  ar- 
tists. Georges  Feydeau  would  have  found  there- 
in enough  matter  for  a  three-act  farce  and  d'An- 
nunzio  for  a  poetic  drama  which  he  might  have 
dedicated  to  "  Isadora  of  the  beautiful  feet."  Ser- 
mons might  be  preached  from  the  text  and  many 
painters  would  touch  the  subject  with  reverence. 
Manet  might  have  painted  Isadora  with  one  of  the 
carpet  slippers  half  depending  from  a  bare,  rosy- 
white  foot. 

There  are  many  fables  concerning  the  beginning 
of  Isadora's  career.  One  has  it  that  the  original 
dance  in  bare  feet  was  an  accident.  .  .  .  Isadora 
was  laving  her  feet  in  an  upper  chamber  when  her 
hostess  begged  her  to  dance  for  her  other  guests. 
[308] 


The    New    I  sadora 

Just  as  she  was  she  descended  and  met  with  such 
approval  that  thenceforth  her  feet  remained  bare. 
This  is  a  pretty  tale,  but  it  has  not  the  fine  ring  of 
truth  of  the  story  of  the  carpet  slippers.  There 
had  been  bare-foot  dancers  before  Isadora ;  there 
had  been,  I  venture  'to  say,  discinct  "  Greek 
dancers."  Isadora's  contribution  to  her  art  is 
spiritual ;  it  is  her  feeling  for  the  idea  of  the  dance 
which  isolates  her  from  her  contemporaries. 
Many  have  overlooked  this  essential  fact  in  at- 
tempting to  account  for  her  obvious  importance. 
Her  imitators  (and  has  any  other  interpretative 
artist  ever  had  so  many?)  have  purloined  her  cos- 
tumes, her  gestures,  her  steps ;  they  have  put  the 
music  of  Beethoven  and  Schubert  to  new  uses  as 
she  had  done  before  them ;  they  have  unbound  their 
hair  and  freed  their  feet;  but  the  essence  of  her 
art,  the  spirit,  they  have  left  in  her  keeping;  they 
could  not  well  do  otherwise. 

Inspired  perhaps  by  Greek  phrases,  by  the 
superb  collection  of  Greek  vases  in  the  old  Pina- 
kotheck  in  Munich,  Isadora  cast  the  knowledge 
she  had  gleaned  of  the  dancer's  training  from  her. 
At  least  she  forced  it  to  be  subservient  to  her  new 
wishes.  She  flung  aside  her  memory  of  the  entre- 
chat and  the  pirouette,  the  studied  technique  of  the 
ballet;  but  in  so  doing  she  unveiled  her  own  soul. 
[  309  ] 


The    New    Isadora 

She  called  her  art  the  renaissance  of  the  Greek 
ideal  but  there  was  something  modern  about  it, 
pagan  though  it  might  be  in  quality.  Always  it 
was  pure  and  sexless  .  .  .  always  abstract  emo- 
tion has  guided  her  interpretations. 

In  the  beginning  she  danced  to  the  piano  music 
of  Chopin  and  Schubert.  Eleven  years  ago  I  saw 
her  in  Munich  in  a  program  of  Schubert  im- 
promptu* and  Chopin  preludes  and  mazurkas.  A 
year  or  two  later  she  was  dancing  in  Paris  to  the 
accompaniment  of  the  Colonne  Orchestra,  a  good 
deal  of  the  music  of  Gluck's  Orfeo  and  the  very 
lovely  dances  from  Iphigenie  en  Aulide.  In  these 
she  remained  faithful  to  her  original  ideal,  the 
beauty  of  abstract  movement,  the  rhythm  of  ex- 
quisite gesture.  This  was  not  sense  echoing  sound 
but  rather  a  very  delightful  confusion  of  her  own 
mood  with  that  of  the  music. 

So  a  new  grace,  a  new  freedom  were  added  to  the 
dance ;  in  her  later  representations  she  has  added  a 
third  quality,  strength.  Too,  her  immediate  in- 
terpretations often  suggest  concrete  images.  .  .  . 
A  passionate  patriotism  for  one  of  her  adopted 
countries  is  at  the  root  of  her  fiery  miming  of 
the  Marseillaise,  a  patriotism  apparently  as 
deep-rooted,  certainly  as  inflaming,  as  that  which 
inspired  Rachel  in  her  recitation  of  this  hymn 
[310] 


The    New    Isadora 

during  the  Paris  revolution  of  1848.  In  times 
of  civil  or  international  conflagration  the  dancer, 
the  actress  often  play  important  roles  in  world 
politics.  Malvina  Cavalazzi,  the  Italian  balle- 
rina who  appeared  at  the  Academy  of  Music  dur- 
ing the  Eighties  and  who  married  Charles  Maple- 
son,  son  of  the  impressario,  once  told  me  of  a  part 
she  had  played  in  the  making  of  United  Italy. 
During  the  Austrian  invasion  the  Italian  flag  was 
verboten.  One  night,  however,  during  a  represen- 
tation of  opera  in  a  town  the  name  of  which  I  have 
forgotten,  Mme.  Cavalazzi  wore  a  costume  of  green 
and  white,  while  her  male  companion  wore  red,  so 
that  in  the  pas  de  deux  which  concluded  the  ballet 
they  formed  automatically  a  semblance  of  the 
Italian  banner.  The  audience  was  raised  to  a 
hysterical  pitch  of  enthusiasm  and  rushed  from  the 
theatre  in  a  violent  mood,  which  resulted  in  an 
immediate  encounter  with  the  Austrians  and  their 
eventual  expulsion  from  the  city. 

Isadora's  pantomimic  interpretation  of  the  Mar- 
settlaise,  given  in  New  York  before  the  United 
States  had  entered  the  world  war,  aroused  as 
vehement  and  excited  an  expression  of  enthusiasm 
as  it  would  be  possible  for  an  artist  to  awaken  in 
our  theatre  today.  The  audiences  stood  up  and 
scarcely  restrained  their  impatience  to  cheer.  At 
[311] 


The    New    Isadora 

the  previous  performances  in  Paris,  I  am  told,  the 
effect  approached  the  incredible.  ...  In  a  robe 
the  colour  of  blood  she  stands  enfolded;  she  sees 
the  enemy  advance;  she  feels  the  enemy  as  it 
grasps  her  by  the  throat ;  she  kisses  her  flag ;  she 
tastes  blood;  she  is  all  but  crushed  under  the 
weight  of  the  attack;  and  then  she  rises,  trium- 
phant, with  the  terrible  cry,  Aux  armes,  citoyens! 
Part  of  her  effect  is  gained  by  gesture,  part  by  the 
massing  of  her  body,  but  the  greater  part  by 
facial  expression.  In  the  anguished  appeal  she 
does  not  make  a  sound,  beyond  that  made  by  the 
orchestra,  but  the  hideous  din  of  a  hundred  rau- 
cous voices  seems  to  ring  in  our  ears.  We  see 
Felicien  Rops's  Vengeance  come  to  life;  we  see  the 
sans-ctdottes  following  the  carts  of  the  aris- 
tocrats on  the  way  to  execution  .  .  .  and  finally 
we  see  the  superb  calm,  the  majestic  flowing 
strength  of  the  Victory  of  Samothrace.  ...  At 
times,  legs,  arms,  a  leg  or  an  arm,  the  throat,  or 
the  exposed  breast  assume  an  importance  above 
that  of  the  rest  of  the  mass,  suggesting  the  unfin- 
ished sculpture  of  Michael  Angelo,  an  aposiopesis 
which,  of  course,  served  as  Rodin's  inspiration. 

In  the  Marche  Slav  of  Tschaikovsky  Isadora 
symbolizes  her  conception  of  the  Russian  moujik 
rising  from  slavery  to  freedom.     With  her  hands 
[312] 


The    New    Isadora 

bound  behind  her  back,  groping,  stumbling,  head- 
bowed,  knees  bent,  she  struggles  forward,  clad  only 
in  a  short  red  garment  that  barely  covers  her 
thighs.  With  furtive  glances  of  extreme  despair 
she  peers  above  and  ahead.  When  the  strains  of 
God  Save  the  Czar  are  first  heard  in  the  orchestra 
she  falls  to  her  knees  and  you  see  the  peasant 
shuddering  under  the  blows  of  the  knout.  The 
picture  is  a  tragic  one,  cumulative  in  its  horrific 
details.  Finally  comes  the  moment  of  release  and 
here  Isadora  makes  one  of  her  great  effects.  She 
does  not  spread  her  arms  apart  with  a  wide  ges- 
ture. She  brings  them  forward  slowly  and  we 
observe  with  horror  that  they  have  practically  for- 
gotten how  to  move  at  all!  They  are  crushed, 
these  hands,  crushed  and  bleeding  after  their  long 
serfdom;  they  are  not  hands  at  all  but  claws, 
broken,  twisted  piteous  claws !  The  expression  of 
frightened,  almost  uncomprehending,  joy  with 
which  Isadora  concludes  the  march  is  another 
stroke  of  her  vivid  imaginative  genius. 

In  her  third  number  inspired  by  the  Great  War, 
the  Marche  Lorraine  of  Louis  Ganne,  in  which  is 
incorporated  the  celebrated  Chanson  Lorraine, 
Isadora  with  her  pupils,  symbolizes  the  gaiety  of 
the  martial  spirit.  It  is  the  spirit  of  the  cavalry 
riding  gaily  with  banners  waving  in  the  wind;  the 
[313] 


The    New    Isadora 

infantry  marching  to  an  inspired  tune.  There  is 
nothing  of  the  horror  of  war  or  revolution  in  this 
picture  .  .  .  only  the  brilliancy  and  dash  of  war 
.  .  .  the  power  and  the  glory ! 

Of  late  years  Isadora  has  danced  (in  the  con- 
ventional meaning  of  the  word)  less  and  less. 
Since  her  performance  at  Carnegie  Hall  several 
years  ago  of  the  Liebestod  from  Tristan,  which 
Walter  Damrosch  hailed  as  an  extremely  interest- 
ing experiment,  she  has  attempted  to  express 
something  more  than  the  joy  of  melody  and 
rhythm.  Indeed  on  at  least  three  occasions  she 
has  danced  a  Requiem  at  the  Metropolitan  Opera 
House.  ...  If  the  new  art  at  its  best  is  not 
dancing,  neither  is  it  wholly  allied  to  the  art  of 
pantomime.  It  would  seem,  indeed,  that  Isadora 
is  attempting  to  express  something  of  the  spirit  of 
sculpture,  perhaps  what  Vachell  Lindsay  describes 
as  "  moving  sculpture."  Her  medium,  of  neces- 
sity, is  still  rhythmic  gesture,  but  its  development 
seems  almost  dream-like.  More  than  the  dance 
this  new  art  partakes  of  the  fluid  and  unending 
quality  of  music.  Like  any  other  new  art  it  is 
not  to  be  understood  at  first  and  I  confess  in  the 
beginning  it  said  nothing  to  me  but  eventually  I 
began  to  take  pleasure  in  watching  it.  Now  Isa- 
dora's poetic  and  imaginative  interpretation  of  the 
[314] 


The    New    Isadora 

symphonic  interlude  from  Cesar  Franck's  Redemp- 
tion is  full  of  beauty  and  meaning  to  me  and  dur- 
ing the  whole  course  of  its  performance  the  inter- 
preter scarcely  rises  from  her  knees.  The  neck, 
the  throat,  the  shoulders,  the  head  and  arms  are 
her  means  of  expression.  I  thought  of  Barbey 
d'Aurevilly's  phrase,  "  Elle  avait  I* air  de  monter 
vers  Dieu  les  mains  toutes  pleines  de  bonnes 
oewores." 

Isadora's  teaching  has  had  its  results  but  her  in- 
fluence has  been  wider  in  other  directions.  Fokine 
thanks  her  for  the  new  Russian  Ballet.  She  did 
indeed  free  the  Russians  from  the  conventions  of 
the  classic  ballet  and  but  for  her  it  is  doubtful 
if  we  should  have  seen  Scheherazade  and  Cleo- 
patre.  Daphnis  et  Chloe,  Narcisse,  and  UApres- 
midi  d'un  Faune  bear  her  direct  stamp.  This 
then,  aside  from  her  own  appearances,  has  been 
her  great  work.  Of  her  celebrated  school  of  danc- 
ing I  cannot  speak  with  so  much  enthusiasm.  The 
defect  in  her  method  of  teaching  is  her  insistence 
(consciously  or  unconsciously)  on  herself  as  a 
model.  The  seven  remaining  girls  of  her  school 
dance  delightfully.  They  are,  in  addition,  young 
and  beautiful,  but  they  are  miniature  Isadoras. 
They  add  nothing  to  her  style ;  they  make  the  same 
[315] 


The    New    I  sadora 

gestures;  they  take  the  same  steps;  they  have  al- 
most, if  not  quite,  acquired  a  semblance  of  her 
spirit.  They  vibrate  with  intention;  they  have 
force;  but  constantly  they  suggest  just  what  they 
are  .  .  .  imitations.  When  they  dance  alone  they 
often  make  a  very  charming  but  scarcely  overpow- 
ering effect.  When  they  dance  with  Isadora  they 
are  but  a  moving  row  of  shadow  shapes  of  Isadora 
that  come  and  go.  Her  own  presence  suffices  to 
make  the  effect  they  all  make  together.  ...  I 
have  been  told  that  when  Isadora  watches  her  girls 
dance  she  often  weeps,  for  then  and  then  only  she 
can  behold  herself.  One  of  the  griefs  of  an  actor 
or  a  dancer  is  that  he  can  never  see  himself.  This 
oversight  of  nature  Isadora  has  to  some  extent 
overcome. 

Those  who  like  to  see  pretty  dancing,  pretty 
girls,  pretty  things  in  general  will  not  find  much 
pleasure  in  contemplating  the  art  of  Isadora. 
She  is  not  pretty ;  her  dancing  is  not  pretty.  She 
has  been  cast  in  nobler  mould  and  it  is  her  pleasure 
to  climb  higher  mountains.  Her  gesture  is 
titanic ;  her  mood  generally  one  of  imperious  gran- 
deur. She  has  grown  larger  with  the  years  —  and 
by  this  I  mean  something  more  than  the  physical 
meaning  of  the  word,  for  she  is  indeed  heroic  in 
build.  But  this  is  the  secret  of  her  power  and 
[316] 


The    New    I  sadora 

force.  There  is  no  suggestion  of  flabbiness  about 
her  and  so  she  can  impart  to  us  the  soul  of  the 
struggling  moujik,  the  spirit  of  a  nation,  the  fig- 
ure on  the  prow  of  a  Greek  bark.  .  .  .  And  when 
she  interprets  the  Marseillaise  she  seems  indeed  to 
feel  the  mighty  moment. 

July  14,  1917. 


[317] 


IV 

Margaret  Anglin  Produces 
As  You  Like  It 


OF  all  the  comedies  of  Shakespeare  As  You 
Like  It  is  the  one  which  has  attracted  to 
itself  the  most  attention  from  actresses. 
No  feminine  star  but  what  at  one  time  or  another 
has  a  desire  to  play  Rosalind.  Bernard  Shaw 
says,  "  Who  ever  failed  or  could  fail  as  Ros- 
alind?" and  I  am  inclined  to  think  him  right, 
though  opinions  differ.  It  would  seem,  however, 
that  Rosalind  is  to  the  dramatic  stage  what  Mimi 
in  La  Boheme  is  to  the  lyric,  a  role  in  which  a 
maximum  of  effect  can  be  gotten  with  a  minimum 
of  effort. 

Opinions  differ  however.  Stung  to  fury  by 
Mrs.  Kendal's  playing  of  the  part,  George  Moore 
says  somewhere,  "  Mrs.  Kendal  nurses  children  all 
day  and  strives  to  play  Rosalind  at  night.  What 
infatuation,  what  ridiculous  endeavour!  To  real- 
ize the  beautiful  woodland  passion  and  the  idea  of 
the  transformation  a  woman  must  have  sinned,  for 
only  through  sin  may  we  learn  the  charm  of  inno- 
cence. To  play  Rosalind  a  woman  must  have  had 
[318] 


Margaret   Anglin 

more  than  one  lover,  and  if  she  has  been  made  to 
wait  in  the  rain  and  has  been  beaten  she  will  have 
done  a  great  deal  to  qualify  herself  for  the  part." 
Still  another  critic  considers  the  role  a  difficult  one. 
He  says :  "  With  the  exception  of  Lady  Macbeth 
no  woman  in  Shakespeare  is  so  much  in  contro- 
versy as  Rosalind.  The  character  is  thought  to 
be  almost  unattainable.  An  ideal  that  is  lofty  but 
at  the  same  time  vague  seems  to  possess  the  Shake- 
speare scholar,  accompanied  by  the  profound  con- 
viction that  it  never  can  be  fulfilled.  Only  a  few 
actresses  have  obtained  recognition  as  Rosalind, 
chief  among  them  being  Mrs.  Pritchard,  Peg  Wof- 
fington,  Mrs.  Dancer,  Dora  Jordan,  Louisa  Nes- 
bitt,  Helen  Faucit,  Ellen  Tree,  Adelaide  Neilson, 
Mrs.  Scott-Siddons  and  Miss  Mary  Anderson." 

Of  those  who  have  recently  played  Rosalind  per- 
haps Mary  Anderson,  Ada  Rehan,  Henrietta  Cros- 
man  and  Julia  Marlowe  will  remain  longest  in  the 
memory,  although  Marie  Wainwright,  Mary  Shaw, 
Mrs.  Langtry  and  Julia  Neilson  are  among  a  long 
list  of  those  who  have  tried  the  part.  Miss  Rehan 
appeared  in  the  role  when  Augustin  Daly  revived 
the  comedy  at  Daly's  Theatre,  December  17,  1889. 
We  are  told  that  an  effort  was  made  in  this  pro- 
duction to  emphasize  the  buoyant  gaiety  of  the 
piece.  The  scenery  displayed  the  woods  embel- 
[319] 


Margaret    Anglin 

lished  in  a  springtime  green,  and  the  acting  did 
away  as  much  as  possible  with  any  of  the  under- 
lying melancholy  which  flows  through  the  comedy. 

William  Winter  frankly  asserts  —  perhaps  not 
unwittingly  giving  a  staggering  blow  to  the  art  of 
acting  in  so  doing  —  that  the  reason  Rosalind  is 
not  more  often  embodied  "  in  a  competent  and  en- 
thralling manner  is  that  her  enchanting  quality  is 
something  that  cannot  be  assumed  —  it  must  be 
possessed;  it  must  exist  in  the  fibre  of  the  indi- 
vidual, and  its  expression  will  then  be  spontaneous. 
Art  can  accomplish  much,  but  it  cannot  supply  the 
inherent  captivation  that  constitutes  the  puissance 
of  Rosalind.  Miss  Rehan  possesses  that  quality, 
and  the  method  of  her  art  was  the  fluent  method  of 
natural  grace." 

Fie  and  a  fig  for  Mr.  Moore's  theory  about  be- 
ing beaten  and  standing  in  the  rain,  implies  Mr. 
Winter! 

To  Mr.  Winter  I  am  also  indebted  for  a  descrip- 
tion of  Mary  Anderson  in  As  You  Like  it:  "  Miss 
Anderson,  superbly  handsome  as  Rosalind,  indi- 
cated that  beneath  her  pretty  swagger,  nimble 
satire  and  silver  playfulness  Rosalind  is  as  earnest 
of  Juliet  —  though  different  in  temperament  and 
mind  —  as  fond  as  Viola  and  as  constant  as 
Imogen." 

[320] 


Margaret   Anglin 

Miss  Marlowe's  Rosalind,  somewhat  along  the 
same  lines  as  Miss  Anderson's,  and  Miss  Cros- 
man's,  a  hoydenish,  tomboy  sort  of  creature,  first 
cousin  to  Mistress  Nell  and  the  young  lady  of  The 
Amazons,  should  be  familiar  to  theatregoers  of  the 
last  two  decades. 

Last  Monday  evening  Margaret  Anglin  exposed 
her  version  of  the  comedy.  As  might  have  been 
expected,  it  has  met  with  some  unfavourable  crit- 
icism. Preconceived  notions  of  Rosalind  are  as 
prevalent  as  preconceived  notions  of  Hamlet. 
And  yet  if  As  You  Like  It  had  been  produced  Mon- 
day night  as  a  "  new  fantastic  comedy,"  just  as 
Prunella  was,  for  instance,  I  am  inclined  to  think 
that  everybody  who  dissented  would  have  been  at 
Miss  Anglin's  charming  heels. 

The  scenery  has  been  given  undue  prominence 
both  by  the  management  and  by  the  writers  for 
the  newspapers.  Its  most  interesting  feature  is 
the  arrangement  by  which  it  is  speedily  changed 
about.  There  were  no  long  waits  caused  by  the 
settings  of  scenes  during  the  acts.  To  say,  how- 
ever, that  it  has  anything  to  do  with  the  art  of 
Gordon  Craig  is  to  speak  nonsense.  The  scenes 
are  painted  in  much  the  same  manner  as  that  to 
which  we  are  accustomed  and  inured.  There  is  a 
certain  haze  over  the  trees,  caused  partially  by  the 
[321] 


Margaret   Anglin 

tints  and  partially  by  the  lighting,  which  produces 
a  rather  charming  effect,  but  the  outlines  of  the 
trees  aj*e  quite  definite ;  no  impressionism  here. 

The  acting  is  quite  a  different  matter.  As  You 
Like  It  is  one  of  the  most  modern  in  spirit  of  the 
Shakespeare  plays.  This  air  of  modernity  is  still 
further  emphasized  by  the  fact  that  the  play,  for 
the  most  part,  is  written  in  prose.  I  feel  certain 
that  Bernard  Shaw  derived  part  of  his  inspiration 
for  Man  and  Superman  from  As  You  Like  It. 
Only  in  Shakespeare's  play  Ann  Whitefield  (Ros- 
alind) pursues  Octavius  (Orlando)  instead  of 
Jack  Tanner.  I  am  inclined  to  believe  that 
Shaw's  psychology  in  this  instance  is  the  more 
sound.  It  seems  incredible  that  a  girl  so  witty, 
so  beautiful,  and  so  intelligent  as  Rosalind  should 
waste  so  much  time  on  that  sentimental,  uncompre- 
hending creature  known  as  Orlando.  Every  line 
of  Orlando  should  have  sounded  the  knell  of  his 
fate  in  her  ears.  However,  it  must  be  remembered 
that  Orlando  was  young  and  good-looking,  and 
that,  at  least  in  the  play,  men  of  the  right  stamp 
seemed  to  be  scarce.  Of  course,  it  is  out  of 
Touchstone  that  Shaw  has  evolved  his  Jack  Tan- 
ner. 

Whether  Miss  Anglin  had  this  idea  in  mind  or 
not  when  she  produced  the  comedy  I  have  no  means 


Margaret   Anglin 

of  ascertaining.  It  is  not  essential  to  my  point. 
At  least  she  has  emphasized  it,  and  she  has  done 
the  most  intelligent  stage  directing  that  I  have  ob- 
served in  the  performance  of  a  Shakespeare  play 
for  many  a  long  season.  There  is  consistency  in 
the  acting.  Rosalind,  Jaques,  Touchstone,  Celia, 
Oliver,  the  dukes,  Charles,  Sylvius,  the  whole  lot, 
in  fact,  are  natural  in  method  and  manner.  There 
is  no  striving  for  the  fantastic.  Let  that  part  of 
the  comedy  take  care  of  itself,  undoubtedly  sug- 
gested Miss  Anglin. 

Jaques,  finely  portrayed  by  Fuller  Mellish,  de- 
livers that  arrant  bit  of  nonsense  "  The  Seven 
Ages  of  Man  "  in  such  a  manner  as  a  man  might 
tell  a  rather  serious  story  in  a  drawing  room. 
"  The  Seven  Ages  of  Man,"  of  course,  is  just 
as  much  of  an  aria  as  La  Donna  e  Mobile.  It 
always  awakens  applause,  but  this  time  the  ap- 
plause was  deserved.  Mr.  Mellish  emphasized  the 
cynical  side  of  the  role.  He  smiled  in  and  out  of 
season,  and  his  most  "  melancholy  "  remarks  were 
delivered  in  such  a  manner  as  to  indicate  that  they 
were  not  too  deeply  felt.  Jaques  was  a  little  bored 
with  the  forest  and  his  companions,  but  he  would 
have  been  quite  in  his  element  at  Mme.  Recamier's. 
Such  was  the  impression  that  Fuller  Mellish  gave. 
Bravo,  Mr.  Mellish,  for  an  impression ! 


Margaret   Anglin 

Similarly  the  Touchstone  of  Sidney  Greenstreet. 
We  are  accustomed  to  more  physically  attractive 
Touchstones,  fools  with  finer  bodies,  and  yet  this 
keen-minded,  stout  person  spoke  his  lines  with  such 
pertness  and  spontaneity  that  they  rarely  failed  of 
their  proper  effect.  As  for  Orlando,  it  seemed  to 
me  that  Pedro  de  Cordoba  was  a  little  too  rhetor- 
ical at  times  to  fit  in  with  the  spirit  of  the  per- 
formance, but  Orlando  at  times  does  not  fit  into 
the  play.  For  instance,  when  he  utters  those  in- 
credible lines: 

"  If  ever  you  have  looked  on  better  days, 

If  ever  been  where  bells  have  knolled  to  church, 

If  ever  sat  at  any  good  man's  feast, 

If  ever  from  your  eyelids  wiped  a  tear.  .  .  ." 

I  do  not  know  whether  Miss  Anglin  is  a  disciple 
of  George  Moore  or  William  Winter  in  her  acting 
of  Rosalind.  How  she  acquired  her  charm  is  not 
for  us  to  seek  into.  It  is  only  for  us  to  credit  her 
with  having  it  in  great  plenty.  A  charming  nat- 
ural manner  which  made  the  masquerading  lady 
seem  more  than  a  fantasy.  Her  warning  to  Phebe, 

"  Sell  when  you  can ;  you  are  not  for  all  markets," 

was  delicious  in  its  effect.     I  remember  no  Rosalind 

who    wooed    her    Orlando    so    delightfully.     For 

[324] 


Margaret    Anglin 

Rosalind,  as  Woman  the  Pursuer,  driven  forward 
by  the  Life  Force,  is  convincingly  Miss  Anglin's 
conception  —  a  conception  which  fits  the  comedy 
admirably. 

As  to  the  objections  which  have  been  raised  to 
Miss  Anglin's  assumption  of  the  masculine  gar- 
ments without  any  attempt  at  counterfeiting  mas- 
culinity, I  would  ask  my  reader,  if  she  be  a  woman, 
what  she  would  do  if  she  found  it  necessary  to  wear 
men's  clothes.  If  she  were  not  an  actress  she 
would  undoubtedly  behave  much  as  she  did  in 
women's,  suppressing  unnecessary  and  telltale  ges- 
tures as  much  as  possible,  but  not  trying  to  im- 
itate mannish  gestures  which  would  immediately 
stamp  her  an  impostor.  There  is  no  internal  evi- 
dence in  Shakespeare's  play  to  prove  that  Rosalind 
was  an  actress.  She  might  have  appeared  in  pri- 
vate theatricals  at  the  palace,  but  even  that  is 
doubtful.  Consequently  when  she  donned  men's 
clothes  it  became  evident  to  her  that  many  men 
are  effeminate  in  gesture  and  those  that  are  do 
not  ordinarily  affect  mannish  movements.  Her 
most  obvious  concealment  was  to  be  natural  — 
quite  herself.  This,  I  think,  is  one  of  the  most  in- 
teresting and  well-thought-out  points  of  Miss 
Anglin's  interpretation. 

March  20,  1914. 

[325] 


The  Modern  Composers  at 
a  Glance 


The   Modern   Composers 
at  a  Glance 

An   Impertinent  Catalogue 


IGOR  STRAVINSKY:     Paul  Revere  rides  in  Russia. 

CYRIL,  SCOTT:     A  young  man  playing  Debussy  in 
a  Maidenhead  villa. 

BALILLA    PRATELLA:     Pretty     noises     in     funny 
places. 

ENGELBERT  HTJMPERDINCK  :     His  master's  voice. 

LEO  ORNSTEIN:     A  small  boy  upsetting  a  push- 
cart. 

GIACOMO  PUCCINI:     Pinocchio  in  a  passion. 

ERIK  SATIE  :     A  mandarin  with  a  toy  pistol  firing 
into  a  wedding  cake. 

PAUL  DUKAS  :     A  giant  eating  bonbons. 

RICCARDO  ZANDONAI:     Brocade  dipped  in  garlic. 

ERICH  KORNGOL.D  :     The  white  hope. 

ARNOLD  SCHOENBERG:     Six  times  six  is  thirty-six 
—  and  six  is  ninety-two ! 

MAURICE    RAVEL,:     Tomorrow  .  .  .  and    tomor- 
row .   .   .   and  tomorrow  .   .  . 

CLAUDIA  DEBUSSY:     Chantecler  crows  pianissimo 
in  whole  tones. 

[329] 


The    Modern    Composers 

RICHARD    STRAUSS  :     An    ostrich   not    hiding   his 
head. 

SIR  EDWARD  ELGAR:     The  footman  leaves  his  ac- 
cordion in  the  bishop's  carriage. 

ITALO  MONTEMEZZI  :     Three  Kings  —  but  no  aces. 

PERCY  ALDRJDGE  GRAINGER  :     An  effete  Australian 

chewing  tobacco. 
August  8t  1917. 


[330] 


Index 


Abbott,  Emma,   220 

Academy  of  Arts  and  Let- 
ters, 80,  225,  227 

Acting,  111,  113,  119,  120, 
272,  283,  293  et  seq. 

Adam,  Villiers  de  1'Isle,  48, 
49 

Adams,  Maude,  295 

Adams,  Oscar  Fay,  38 

Aeschylus,  103,  303 

Agrippina,  69 

Aguglia,  Mimi,  284,  304,  et 
seq. 

Ainslee's  Magazine,  75 

Alary,   Signer,   248 

Alboni,  Marietta,  169 

Alchemy,  76 

Allegranti,  Maddalena,  254, 
255 

Alma  Tadema,  296 

AX  vary,  Max,  99 

Anderson,  Mary,  319,  320 

Anfossi,    Pasquale,    169 

Anglin,  Margaret,  321  et  seq. 

d'Annunzio,  G.,  284,  305 

Apaches,  126,  135,  138,  140, 
141  et  seq.,  182 

Apthorp,  W.  F.,  99,  168 

Arabanek,  164 

Archilei,  94 

Arditi,  Luigi,  288 

Argentina,  La,  284,  287 

Argus,  The,  54 


Aristotle,  291 

A  me,  257 

Arnould,  Sophie,  82,  96,  259 

et  seq. 

Astor,  J.  J.,  227 
Atilla,  79 
Audran,  216 
Augustus,  69,  70 
d'Aurevilly,   Barbey,  43,  63, 

66,  87,  315 
Ayres,  Frederick,  200 

Bach,  24,  28,  150,  199 

Badarzewska,  Thecla,  23 

Baedeker,  58 

Bag-pipe,    135,    136,    137 

Bahamas,  136 

Baker,  J.  Duncan,  211 

Baker,  Prof.,  298 

Bakst,  Leon,  16 

Bal   des   Gravilliers,    141    et 

seq. 
Balfe,  Michael   William,  27, 

165 

Bal  musette,  125,  134  et  seq. 
Balzac,  43,  50,  55,  56,  57,  63, 

76,  86,  187,  225 
Banti,  Brigitta,  93,  164 
Bara,  Theda,  80 
Barnabee,  Henry  Clay,  221 
Barnet,  R.  A.,  216 
Barrison,  Mabel,  219 
Barry,  Mme.  du,  260 


[331] 


I  ndex 


Bassoonists,  157 

Bataille,    Henry,    228,    230, 

232 

Bates,  Katherine  Lee,  38 
Battistini,  102 
Baudelaire,  Charles,  43,  52, 

131 

Baumgarten,  C.  F.,  171 
Bayes,  Nora,  110 
Beardsley,  Aubrey,  45 
Becque,  Henry,  230 
Beerbohm,  Max,  45,  50,  177, 

238 
Beethoven,  24,  27,  28,  32,  98, 

150,  151,  170,  175,  200,  219, 

298,  300 

Begue,  Bernard,  156 
Belasco,  David,  294 
Bel  canto,  97,  101,  105 
Belford's  Magazine,  37 
Bell,  Digby,  222 
Bellini,  Vincenzo,  24,  25,  77, 

79,  97,  100,  101,  114,  175, 

248,  267,  270,  273 
Bel-Marduk,  82 
Bergstrom,  Hjalmar,  90 
Berlin,  Irving,  25,  222,  234 
Berlioz,  Hector,  27,  104 
Bernacchi,  Antonio,  99 
Bernhardt,   Sarah,   106,   122, 

227,  245,  295,  297,  302 
Bernstein,   Henry,  228,   230, 

232,  302 
Bible,  The,  67 
Bichara,  15 
Bilbao,  287 
Billington,  Mrs.,  172 
Bizet,  Georges,  108,  113,  275 
Blanche,  Jacques,  183,  184 


Blei,  Franz,  69,  78,  259 
Bocklin,   Arnold,  89 
Bonci,  Alessandro,  102 
Booth,  Edwin,  111,  302,  305 
Bouguereau,   61,   293 
Bourget,    Paul,    76 
Boyden,  Frank  L.,  203 
Boynton,     Henry     Walcott, 

38 

Brahma,  82" 
Brahms,  25,  274 
Brann-Brini,  Mile.,  164 
Branscombe,  Gena,  200,  202 
Brenon,  Algernon  St.  John, 

162 

Bret6n,  Tomds,  113 
Brian,  Donald,  217 
Brice,  Fannie,  110 
Brieux,  230 

Brignoli,   Pasquale,   155 
Broadhurst,  George,  302 
Bromley,    Eliza,   74 
Brothers  of  the  Book,  85 
Browning,  Robert,  307 
Bunn,  Alfred,  165 
Burke,  Billie,  295 
Burney,  Dr.,  258 
Butler,  Samuel,  21 
Byzance,  80 


Cabanel,  61 
Caesar,  Julius,  69 
Caffarelli,  95,  96,  112? 
Cahill,  Marie,  110 
Cairns,  William  B.,  38 
Caligula,  51,  69,  79 
Calve,   Emma,   106,  275 
Camargo,   258,   259 


Index 


Campanari,    Giuseppe,    161, 

162 

Campbell,  Mrs.  Patrick,  299 
Caracalla,  79 

Carestini,  Giovanni,  95,  96 
Carmencita,  285 
Carnegie  Hall,  25 
Carre",  Albert,  133 
Carreno,  Teresa,   153 
Caruso,   Enrico,  272 
Cassive,  Armande,  232 
Catalani,    Angelica,    93,   265 

et  seq. 
Cato,  69 
Cats,  59,  69,  77,  102,  127, 

131,  132,  233,  258,  259,  298 
Cavalazzi,  Malvina,  310 
Cesare  Borgia,  79 
Cezanne,  301 
Chabrier,  Emmanuel,  285 
Chadwick,   George   W.,   197, 

199,  212 

Chambers,  Robert  W.,  290 
Chaliapine,  Feodor,  114,  155 
Charpentier,     Gustave,     130, 

131,  132,  133,  134,  173* 
Cherubini,  98 
Cherubino's  question,  54 
Chinese  plays,  103 
Chopin,  23,  26,  55,  112,  239, 

240,  301,  310 
Ghorley,    Henry    Fothergill, 

98,  169,  247,  249,  261 
Christ,  58,  67,  185,  191,  192 
Christianity,  57,  68,  82,  83 
Christy,    Howard    Chandler, 

293 

Churchill,    Lady    Randolph, 
'  185 


Cimarosa,  Domenico,  255 
Cinderella,  137 
Cicisbeism,   82 
Clairon,  96,  260,  302 
Classical  music,  23 
Claudius,  69 
Cleopatra,  82 
Cline,  Maggie,  107 
Coerne,  L.  A.,  199,  202 
Cohan,  George  M.,  288 
Colles,  Ramsay,  39 
Colonne   Orchestra,  310 
Coloratura  singing,  103,  104 
Columbia  University,  43 
Comstock,  Anthony,  59 
Condamine,    Robert    de    la, 

183 

Congreve,  303 
Conrad,  Joseph,  299 
Conried,  Henrich,  161,  162 
Converse,  Frederick,  212 
Cooking,  26,  50,  78,  129,  130, 

149  et  seq. 

Cordoba,  Pedro  de,  324 
Corneille,   104 
Costa,   Michael,   163 
Cou-Cou  Restaurant,  125  et 

seq.,  183 

Courts  of  Love,  65,  82 
Cox,  J.  E.,  165,  173,  264 
Cox,  Kenyon,  62 
Craig,  Gordon,  321 
Critics,  24,  26,  30,  33,  34,  96, 

97,  99,  100,  105,  111,  115, 

228,  234 
Crosman,      Henrietta,      319, 

321 

Crowest,  Frederick,  163,  164 
Current   Literature,   39 


[  333  ] 


Index 


Cushman,  Charlotte,  302 
Cuzzoni,   Francesca,   95,  258 

Daly,  Augustin,  319 
Daly,  Dan,  HI 
Damrosch,  Walter,  157,  314 
Dancing,    112,    113,    137    et 

seq.,  281  et  seq.,  307  et  seq. 
Dante,  76 
Darby,  W.  D.,  200 
Davis,  Cecilia,  253 
Davis,  Jessie   Bartlett,  221 
Davis,  Owen,  93 
Debussy,  Claude,  30,  33,  96, 

113,  116,  117,  118,  119,  121, 

200,  315,  329 
Decoration,    Interior,    11    et 

seq. 

Delacroix,  19 
Delibes,  Leo,  108,  113 
Deslys,  Gaby,  222 
Destinn,  Emmy,  114,  155 
Devi,  Ratan,  109 
Dickens,  Charles,  187 
Dolmetsch,  Arnold,  192 
Doloretes,  286,  287,  288 
Donizetti,    Gaetano,    61,    79, 

88,  97,  101,  108,  113,  114, 

166,  173,  247,  248,  249,  250, 

251,  263 
Doubleday,  203 
Dreiser,   Theodore,  202,  203 
Dresser,  Paul,  202,  203 
Dressier,  Marie,  222 
Drew,  John,  111,  295,  300 
Duclos,  259 

Duff-Gordon,  Lady,  222 
Dukas,   Paul,   104,   113,   114, 

329 


Dumas,  Alexandra,  fits,  106, 

205 

Duncan,  Isadora,  307  et  seq. 
Duse,    Eleanora,    277,    295, 

303 
Dussek,      Johann      Ludwig, 

171 
Dyer,  Edward,  209 

Eames,  Emma,  275 
Earle,  Virginia,  219 
Ehrhard,  Auguste,  55 
Elgar,  Sir  Edward,  329 
Elizabethan   plays,   51,   103 
Ellis,     Havelock,     281,    285, 

286,  291 

Ellis,  Melville,  222 
Elman,  Mischa,  298 
Elson,  L.  C.,  198,  199 
Elssler,  Fanny,  55 
Eltinge,  Julian,  96 
Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  43 
Euripides,  103 
Evertson,  Admiral  Kornelis, 

42 

Fall,  Leo,  216 

Fame,  4i 

Farinelli,  95 

Farwell,  Arthur,  200,  202 

Faustina,  95,  96,  258 

Fawcett,  Edgar,  66 

Fe>rier,     Henry,     113,     115, 

118,  119,  120 
Feydeau,  Georges,  129,  229, 

230,  231,  232,  233,  236,  237, 


Finck,  H.  T.,  24,  25,  30,  32, 
58,  95,  99,  153,  272 

[S34] 


Index 


Fischer,     Johann     Christian, 

161 

Fiske,  Mrs.,  297,  303 
Fitzgerald,  Percy,  296 
Flaubert,  Gustave,  66,  76,  87 
Folk-song,  30,  33,   100,   106, 

109,  152 

Follies,  The,  16,  222,  223 
Foote,  Arthur,  199,  202 
Ford,  Richard,  285,  291 
Formes,  Karl,  164 
Forum,  The,  87 
Foster,  Stephen,  29,  33,  152 
Fox,  Delia,  217,  218,  219 
Fox,  Helen  Kelsey,  208 
Fragonard,   18 
France,  Anatole,  68,  185,  193 
Franck,  Cesar,  151,  315 
Franz,    Robert,    23,    26,    93, 

111 
Fremstad,    Olive,    108,    156, 

298,  300 
Freud,  50 
Frezzolini,  Erminia,  261  et 

seq. 
Frohman,  Charles,  85,  296 

Gadski,  Johanna,   155 
Galli,  Signora,  254 
1  Galli-Curci,     Amelita,     101, 

102,    104,    114 
Gamble,  George,  39,  54 
Ganne,  Louis,  313 
Garcia,  Manuel,  160 
Garcia,  Manuel,  fils,  252 
Garden,    Mary,    84,    114    et 

seq.,  131,  133,  155 
Gardiner,  William,  267 
Garrick,  David,  96,  260,  302 


Gautier,    The"ophile,    46,    58, 

87,  131,  190,  225 
German  music,  150 
Gerome,  61 
Gerster,  Etelka,  269 
Giacosa,  284,  305 
Giardini,  Felice  de,  164 
Gibbons,   Grinling,   19 
Gilbert,  W.  S.,  107,  216,  221 
Giovannitti,   Arturo,  305 
Gipsy,  100,  286 
Gizziello,  95 
Glaser,   Lulu,   219 
Gluck,  29,  30,   96,   108,   135, 

170,  252,  258,  259,  260,  310 
Goncourt,   Brothers   de,  302 
Goodrich,   A.  J.,  199,  202 
Goodwin,  Nat,  295 
Gosse,  Edmund,  179 
Gounod,  117,  151,  272,  273 
Gourmont,  Remy  de,  48,  229 
Goya,  59,  287 
Grainger,    Percy,    30,    330 
Grau,  Maurice,  161 
Greek  Plays,  103 
Greenstreet,  Sidney,  324 
Greenwich  Village,   16 
Gregory,  Lady,  192 
Gretry,    170 
Grieg,   Edvard,   93 
Grimm,  259 

Grisi,  Giulia,  166,  263  et  seq. 
Grove,  Sir  George,  171,  202, 

271 
Guilbert,    Yvette,    107,    113, 

114,  277 


Hadley,  Henry,  197,  212 
Hadrian,  69 


[335] 


Index 


Hale,  Philip,  33 
Halevy,  Jacques,  248 
Hall,  Pauline,  219 
Handel,    George    Frederick, 

25,   95,   97,   102,   113,   119, 

172,  254 

Hanslick,  Eduard,  102,  263 
Harris,  Charles  K.,  202 
Harris,  Frank,  55,  189,  190 
Hartmann,  Eduard  von,  43, 

56,  60 

Hawthorne  vases,  18 
Hay,  Reverend  John  Stuart, 

72 

Haydn,  28 
Heidelberg,  43 
Heifetz,  Jascha,  287 
Heine,     Heinrich,    82,     240, 

286,  287 

Heinrich,  Max,  107,  155,  246 
Helen  of  Troy,  82 
Heliogabolus,  68,  69,  72 
Heloise,  82 
Helvetius,  259 
Henderson,  W.  J.,  33,  115 
Herbert,  Victor,  155,  216 
Hergesheimer,     Joseph,     44, 

153 

Herodotus,  86 
Hertz,  Alfred,  155 
Hervieu,  Paul,  228 
Heyse,  Paul,  67 
Hichens,  Robert,  75,  81 
Higginson,    Thomas     Went- 

worth,  38 

Hirsch,  Charles-Henry,   141 
Hirsch,  Louis  A.,  222 
Hoff,  Edwin,  221 
Hollins,  Mabel,  219 


Homer,  76,  86 

Hopper,  De  Wolf,  107,  221 

Hopwood,    Avery,    101,    236 

et  seq. 
Horace,  76 

Howells,  W.  D.,  74,  191 
Hubbard,   Elbert,  39,  48 
Hughes,  Rupert,  198,  199 
Hugo,  Victor,  52,  55,  76,  87, 

105 
Humperdinck,        Engelbert, 

24,  29,  173,  329 
Huneker,  James,  33,  38,  55, 

153,  154,  164,  173 
Huss,    Henry    Holden,    199, 

202 
Huysmans,  J.  K.,  43,  53,  70, 

76,  80,  87,  151,  191,  308 

Ibsen,  302 
Incest,  60,  74,  84 
d'Indy,  Vincent,  200 
Irving,  Sir   Henry,  294,  302 
Irwin,  May,  110 
Ivan  the  Terrible,  79 

Jackson,    Holbrook,    44,    63 
James,  Henry,  59,  68,  231 
Janis,  Elsie,  110,  222 
Jansen,  Marie,  219,  222 
Jefferson,  Joseph,  303,  304 
Jehovah,  82 
Jensen,  Adolph,  24 
Jew,  58,  71,  152 
Joachim,  Joseph,   156 
Jolson,  Al,  110,  222 
Jones,    Henry   Arthur,   234 
Joseffy,  Rafael,  155 
Judic,  220 


[336] 


I  ndex 


Jupiter,  82 

Kaiser,  The,  79 

Kapila,  57 

Keane,   Doris,    13 

Kellogg,   Clara  Louise,   166, 

268,  269 

Kellow,  Lottie  A.,  203,  204 
Kelly,  Michael,  159,  160,  161, 

170,  256 

Kendal,  Mrs.,  318 
Kenton,  Edna,  41,  53 
Ker,  Ann,  74 
Kern,  Jerome,  23,  222 
Korngold,  Erich,  329 
Koven,  Reginald  de,  216,  221 
Krehbiel,    H.    E.,    100,    153, 

155 
Krishna,  83 

Labatt,  164 
Lablache,  Luigi,  163 
Laforgue,  Jules,  43 
Laguerre,  Mme.,  260 
La  Harpe,  260 
Lalo,  Pierre,  33 
Lampridius,  70,  72 
Lavignac,  Albert,   173 
Lecocq,  Charles,  173,  216 
Lehar,  Franz,  216 
Lehmann,  Lilli,  100,  107,  155, 

269,  270,  274 
Leoncavallo,     Ruggiero,    32, 

149 

Lesbian,  75 
Lessing,  Madge,  219 
Levey,  Ethel,  110 
Lewes,   George    Henry,  294, 

301 


Lienau's,  154 

Lind,  Jenny,  248,  253,  265 

et  seq.,  298 

Lindsay,    Vachell,   314 
Lippincott's  Magazine,  63 
Lisle,  Leconte  de,  57,  76 
Liszt,  25,  32,  240 
Lombard,  Jean,  69 
Lombroso,  308 
Loomis,  Harvey  W.,  200 
Louis  XIV,  135,  137 
Louis  XV,  12 
Love,  81,  82 
Loy,  Mina,  188 
Lucca,   Pauline,  269 
Lulli,  172 
Lumley,  Benjamin,  162,  265, 

286 

MacDowell,  Edward,  25 
Macdonald,  John  Z.,  208 
MacGill,  Patrick,  299 
Mackaye,  Percy,  235 
McCutcheon,    George    Barr, 

296 

Mclntosh,   Nancy,   219 
Macy,  John,  38 
Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  117 
Mahler,  Gustav,  28 
Male  sopranos,  94 
Malibran,    Maria,    164,    165, 

166,  253 

Mallarm£,  St6phane,  43,  301 
Manet,  61,  289,  308 
Mapleson,  J.  H.,  159,  264 
Mara,    Gettrude    Elisabeth, 

255  et  seq. 
Marchesi,  Mathilde,  102,  149, 

252,  297 


[  337  ] 


Index 


Marco,  Maria,  108,  288 
Marie  Antoinette,  259,  260 
Marinetti,  282 
Mario,  102? 
Marion,  George,  28 
Marlowe,  Julia,  319,  321 
Marnold,  Jean,  32 
Marseillaise,  310  et  seq. 
Martyn,  Edward,  192,  294 
Mary  Magdalen,  66,  67,  68 
Mascagni,  Pietro,  2B,  275,  301 
Massenet,   27,   28,    116,    117, 

119,  120,  151,  275 
Matisse,  19 
Maurel,     Victor,     107,     120, 

246 

May,  Edna,  219 
Mayhew,  Stella,  110 
Mazantinita,  287 
Mazarin,  Mariette,  114 
Mazzoleni,  166 
Melba,  Nellie,  102,  104,  107, 

108,  114,  155,  156,  187,  271 

et  seq.,  297 
Mellish,  Fuller,  323 
Melody,  29,  93 
Mencken,  H.  L.,  59,  65,  153, 

197,  198,  202,  203,  212 
Mendelssohn,  23,  24,  26,  171, 

202 

Mendes,  Catulle,  43 
Meredith,  George,  187 
Me>im£cJ,    Prosper,    58,    87, 

131,  142 
Meyerbeer,  Giacomo,  28,  29, 

102,  157,  164,  252 
Michael  Angelo,  227,  312 
Michelet,  176 
Milton,  257 


Mirbeau,    Octave,    229,    230, 

231,  232,  233 
Mitchell,  Julian,  281 
Mitchell,  Langdon,  303 
Modern  Orchestra,  98 
Modulation,  30 
Moeller,  Philip,  26,  236,  238 

et  seq. 
Moliere,   225,   230,   231,   298, 

302 

Monbelli,  256 
Mnnkshood,  G.  F.,  39,  54 
Montaigne,  150 
Montemezzi,  Italo,  24,  330 
Montes,  189 
Monteverde,  102 
Montmartre,  126  et  seq. 
Monvel,  Boutet  de,  142 
Moore,  George,  67,  134,  184 

et  seq.,  231,  232,  294,  295, 

307,  318,  320,  324 
Moors,  The,  65 
Moreau,  Gustave,  44,  61,  89, 

191 
"  Morrill,  Higgins,  and  Co.," 

71 
Moulin   de   la   Galette,    133, 

134 
Mount  Edgcumbe,  Earl  of, 

93,  94,  253,  254,  255 
Moussorgsky,  23,  152 
Mozart,    23,   24,    27,    28,   29, 

31,  54,  88,  97,  101,  108,  119, 

161,  173,  174,  205,  234,  248, 

268,  269,  270,  275,  276,  289, 

298,  300,  305 
Mullin,  W.  T.,  204  et  seq. 
Murillo,  190 
Murphy,  Agnes  G.,  155 

1 


Index 


Murska,  lima  de,  269 
Musset,  Alfred  de,  239,  240, 

252 
Musette,  135 

Nachbaur,  Franz,  164 
Names,    Theory    of,   49,    50, 

56,  76 

Napoleon,  79,  192" 
Naldi,  Giuseppe,  160 
Nathan,    George    Jean,    293, 

295 

Nazimova,  Alia,  283,  305 
Negro  Players,  283 
Newman,  Ernest,  32,  150 
Niemann,  Albert,  164 
Nero,  69,  71,  72 
Nerval,  G6rard  de,  31 
New      York      Times,      The, 

283 

Nicolai,  Carl,  173 
Nicolini,  95 
Nielsen,  Alice,  219 
Nijinsky,  Waslav,   112,   183, 

285,  301 

Nillson,  Carlotta,  237 
Nilsson,  Christine,  268,  269 
Nordica,  Lillian,  270 

Offenbach,  216,  219 
Opera-Comique,   Paris,    131 
Orleneff,  Paul,  283,  305 
Ornstein,  Leo,  30,   104,   121, 

298,  329 
Oysters,  American,  158 

Pacchierotti,   93,  94,   95 
Pachmann,  Vladimir  de,  301 
Paganini,  172 


Palmer,  Delmar  G.,  210,  211 

Pan,  Peter,  137 

Parke,  W.  T.,  171,  172,  256, 

257,  258 
Parker,  Horatio  W.,  23,  197, 

212 
Pasta,   Giuditta,   97,   249   et 

seq. 
Pater,   Walter,    70,   72,    137, 

190,  307 

Pattee,  Fred  Lewis,  38 
Patti,  Adelina,  101,  102,  104, 

115,  153,  253,  269,  288,  298 
Payton,  Corse,  304 
Peacock,  Thomas  Love,  301 
Peladin,  Josephin,  43 
Persian  miniatures,  19 
Pessimism,  56,  60,  61,  65 
Petrarch,  76 
Pfitzner,  Hans,  200 
Perfumes,  79 
Phelps,  William  Lyon,  38 
Pheme,  86 
Philip  II,  79 
Philistine,  The,  39 
Philosophy  of  Edgar  Saltus, 

54,  56 

Picasso,  Pablo,  19,  183 
Piccinni,   Niccola,  24,  258 
Pinero,    Arthur    Wing,    234, 

295,  302,  303,  321 
Pinto,  Mrs.,  257 
Pischek,  Johann,  173 
Pistocchi,  Francesco,  99 
Plagiarism,    72 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  44,  87 
Pogliani,  Giacomo,  157 
Poiret,  Paul,  154,  222 
Poisons,  51,  52,  59,  64,  76 


Index 


Pollard,  Percival,  48 
Pompadour,  Mme.  de,  260 
Ponchielli,  Amilcare,  175 
Popular  music,  23 
Porpora,  95,  96,  99 
Pougy,  Liane  de,  201 
Pratella,  Balilla,  329 
Puccini,  Giacomo,  24,  26,  29, 

100,  103,  108,  113,  157,  173, 

175,  318,  329 
Puchol,  Luisita,  288 
Puente,  del,  159 
Purcell,  Henry,  152 
Puritanism,  65 
Pyrrhonist,  179 

Quincy,  de,  31 
Quinlan,  Gertrude,  219 

Rabusson,  63 

Rachel,  250,  301,  302,  310 

Radcliffe,  Mrs.,  74 

Raff,  Joseph  Joachim,  23 

Ragtime,  110,  152,  290 

Rankin,  Phyllis,  219 

Ravel,     Maurice,    200,    315, 

329 

Realism  in  fiction,  56,  77,  88 
Realistic   acting,   105,   111 
Reeves,  Sims,  263 
Reger,  Max,  27,  29 
Rehan,  Ada,  319,  320 
Reicher,  Frank,  300 
Reinhardt,  Max,  282 
Renan,  76 

Renaud,  Maurice,  107,  246 
Repplier,   Agnes,   9,   38,    69 
Reszke,  Jean  de,  100 
Retz,  Gille  de,  80 


Rimbaud,  Arthur,  43 
Rimsky-Korsakov,   157,   299, 

315 

Ring,  Blanche,  110 
Ristori,  302 

Rives,  Mme.  Amelie,  48 
Rodin,    Auguste,    129,    227, 

228,  312 
Rome,  70,  71 
Ronalds,  Lorillard,  69 
Ronconi,  Giorgio,  97,  98,  246 
Ronsard,  76 
Roosevelt,     Theodore,     120, 

209 

Rops,  Felicien,  312 
Rorer,  Mrs.,  149 
Rossini,   Gioacchino,   25,   26, 

28,  31,  33,  61,  97,  101,  102, 

103,  142,  149,  168,  169,  248, 

273,  288 
Rostand,  228 
Rowland,  Adele,  222 
Riibgam,   164 
Rubini,    Giovanni    Battista, 

163 

Rubinstein,  Anton,  24,  112 
Runciman,  J.  F.,  32,  234 
Russell,  Lillian,  160,  220 
Russian  Ballet,  282,  288,  315 
Rutherford,  John  S.,  63 


Sacr£-Coeur,  Church  of,  126, 

130 

Sagan,  Princesse  de,  84 
St.  Giorgio,  Signer,  159,  160 
St  Paul's  School,  42 
Salieri,  Antonio,  170 
Salome,  66,  67,  86,  287 


[340] 


Index 


Saltus,    Edgar,    37    et    seq., 

117,  154,  187,  191,  225 
Saltus,  Francis,  42 
Sanborn,  Pitts,  118 
Sand,  George,  26,  239,  240, 

252 

Sanderson,  Julia,  217 
Santley,    Charles,    158,    167, 

174,  264 
Sappho,  76,  82 
Sardou,  302,  303 
Satan,  58,  78,  286,  287 
Satie,  Erik,  30,  329 
Saturday        Review,       The, 

18 
Savoyarde,    restaurant,    125, 

126,  130,  131 
Scharwenka,  Xaver,  155 
Scheherazade,  82" 
Schillings,  Max,  150 
Schoenberg,  Arnold,  30,  32, 

121,  329 

Schopenhauer,  43,  56 
Schroeder,  Edwin  Albert,  71 
Schroeder-Devrient,    Wilhel- 

mine,  99 
Schubert,  24,  27,  28,  33,  170, 

205,  305,  310 
Schumann,  111,  274 
Scott,  Cyril,  29,  329 
Scotti,  Antonio,  107 
Scriptores   Historiae  Au- 

gustae,  70 
Seidl,  Anton,  155 
Sembrich,  Marcella,  104,  107, 

108,    114,    115,    153,    271, 

273  et  seq. 
Senesino,  95 
Shakespeare,  73,  76,  98,  147, 


284,  298,  302,  305,  318  et 

seq. 

Sharp,  Cecil  J.,  30,  109 
Shaw,   George    Bernard,   42, 

234,  235,  239,  318,  322 
Shepherd,  Arthur,  200 
Sherwin,     Louis,     222,     291, 

293,  295 

Shield,  William,  171,  172 
Siddons,  Mrs.,  18,  302,  303 
Simonds,  W.  E.,  38 
Singing,  93  et  seq. 
Smith,  Harry  B.,  222 
Snob,  50 
Socrates,  117 
Solomon,  19,  80,  82 
Sonata  form,  32 
Sontag,    Henrietta,    246    et 

seq. 

Sophocles,  103,  302 
Sorbonne,  43 
Sousa,  John  Philip,  202,  209, 

216 

Southeim,  164 
Spain,    19,    59,    62,    94,    100, 

106,  142,  189,  190,  281   et 

seq. 

Spiritualism,  43 
Spohr,  Louis,  24 
Stanislavski,  283 
Stanton,  Theodore,  38 
Starr,  Hattie,  202 
Starr,  Muriel,  253 
Steger,  164 

Stein,  Gertrude,  19,  79,  229 
Steinlen,  139 
Steinway,  William,  154 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  68,  74 
Stigelli,  166 


[341] 


Index 


Stillman-Kelley,  Edgar,  199, 

202 

Straus,   Oskar,   216 
Strauss,  Johann,  25,  139,  216 
Strauss,  Richard,  25,  30,  31, 

32,  33,  100,  104,  113,  114, 

120,  175,  330 
Stravinsky,     Igor,    32,    100, 

104,  114,  121,  152,  329 
Stuck,  Franz  von,  89 
Style    in    Singing,    98,    106, 

107,  108,  109,  110,  116,  117, 

118,  119,  245,  246,  249,  250, 

251,  270,  273,  274,  276 
Style  in  Writing,  45,  46,  47, 

48,  49,  53,  55,  56 
Suetonius,  70,  72 
Sullivan,    Sir    Arthur,    107, 

169,  216,  220,  221 
Swinburne,  76,  307 
Symonds,  J.  A.,  72 
Symons,    Arthur,    188,    232, 

245,  293,  301,  303 
Synge,  J.  M.,  103 

Tacitus,  72 

Taggart,  Lucy  L.,  209 

Tamagno,  Francesco,  120 

Tasso,  62 

Taste,  11  et  seq. 

Tchekhov,  303 

Tempest,    Marie,    219,    252, 

301 

Temps,  Le,  18 
Terence,  302 
Terry,  Ellen,  301 
Tetrazzini,   Luisa,   102,   160 
Thebes,  Mme.  de,  79 
Thomas,  Ambroise,  173 


Thomas,  Augustus,  235,  236, 

295 

Thomas,  Olive,  223 
Thomas,  Theodore,  155 
Tiberius,  69 
Tichatschek,    Joseph    Aloys, 

164 

Tilzer,   Harry   von,   202 
Tinney,  Frank,  222 
Tissot,  67 

Toscunini,  Arturo,  156 
Tradition,  24,  97,  281 
Troubetskoy,  Prince,  157 
Tschaikovsky,  59,  312 
Turgeniev,  187,  252 
Twain,  Mark,  261,  265 

Urban,  Joseph,  222,  223 

Vagaries  of  genius,  55 
Valliere,  Louise,  de  la,  13 
Valverde,    Joaqufn,    284    et 

seq. 

Vaughn,  Theresa,  219 
Verelst,  Myndart,  56,  58 
Veiller,  Bayard,  68 
Velasquez,  16,  190 
Verdi,    Giuseppe,    120,    149, 

173,  221,  270,  275,  298,  323 
Verlaine,  Paul,  43 
Veronese,  16 
Versatility  in  acting,  300 
Vespasian,  69 
Viafora,  157 
Viardot,    Pauline,    98,    250, 

251,  252,  253 
Victory  of  Samothrace,  The, 

17,  312 


[342] 


Index 


Vinci,  Leonardo  da,  190,  191, 
301 

Wachtel,  Theodor,  164 

Wagner,  Richard,  23,  29,  33, 
93,  96,  99,  100,  102,  104, 
108,  113,  120,  150,  162,  173, 
175,  270,  271,  274,  298,  301, 
314 

Walter,  Eugene,  68 

Walter,  Gustav,  164 

Warfield,  David,  295 

Wayburn,   Ned,  281 

Weber,  27,  31,   98,   175 

Webster,  51 

Weckerlin,  J.  B.,  169 

Weichsell,  Carl,  172 

Weichsell,  Charles,  172" 

Weidley,  David,  210 


Wendell,  Barrett,  38 
Westminster  Magazine,  39 
Whitmer,  T.  Carl,  200,  202 
Wilde,  Oscar,  20,  43,  48,  55, 

63,  64,  66,  70, 85, 86,  87,  187, 

239,  282,  307 

Winter,  William,  320,  324 
Wodehouse,  P.  G.,  222 
Women,  Saltus's  opinion  of, 

73 
Wullner,  Ludwig,  246 

Yeats,  W.  B.,  192 
Yohe,  May,  219 

Zandonai,  Riccardo,  329 
Zeus,  82 

Ziegfeld,  Florenz,  283 
Zuloaga,  290 


[343] 


', 


